Media Release

As declared by the United Nations, the 2018 World Autism Awareness Day focuses on the importance of empowering autistic women and girls and involving them and their representative organisations in policy and decision making to address these challenges.

"Girls with disabilities are less likely to complete primary school and more likely to be marginalised or denied access to education. Women with disabilities have a lower rate of employment than men with disabilities and women without disabilities. ...

Does your NDIS plan fall short? This article may help understand NDIS strategies and tactics ... and how you (and others) might combat them.

Sam Paior - NDIS News

Budget pressures are mounting, staffing for the NDIA and its LAC partners is becoming more and more difficult, and dissatisfaction with the Scheme is growing, as the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) made a big, pointy, important decision last week.

Section 34 of the NDIS Act, the “Reasonable and Necessary” definition, is among the most important, and contentious, frameworks of the NDIS. It is used to determine what supports and services will be funded in an NDIS plan. However, its interpretation varies, almost on a day to day basis, with the NDIS trying desperately to protect its budgets. The AAT’s ruling last week on the case of young LNMT (name redacted to protect her privacy) has set a precedent that is indeed, a game changer.

Adam McCrimmon, University of Calgary

I often get asked “Does my child have Asperger’s?” in my clinical work. Or, “Do I have Asperger’s?”

These are challenging questions to answer. They have stimulated much debate among clinicians, researchers, and those who have identify with the term over the past several years.

Talissa Siganto

Queensland's Police Commissioner says he backs the officers who shot a teenager in the chest after a domestic dispute on Wednesday afternoon.

Jai Hunt, 16, was allegedly threatening police officers with a knife when they arrived at his home in Springfield, south-west of Brisbane.

The Police Union maintains officers had no option but to shoot Jai.

LINA ZELDOVICH

Starting next year, clinicians worldwide may be using a new, streamlined set of criteria to diagnose autism.

The criteria are part of a highly anticipated update to the “International Classification of Diseases,” a diagnostic manual produced by the World Health Organization (WHO). The latest draft of the manual, dubbed ICD-11, collapses autism, Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) into a single diagnosis of ‘autism spectrum disorder.’