DAN WHEELAHAN

The deaths of more than 700 Australian adults with an intellectual disability could have been avoided with more appropriate health care and monitoring, a UNSW study has revealed.

Research by UNSW has found that while Down syndrome itself doesn’t cause death, it is still coded that way in a flawed classification system. Photo: Shutterstock.

A total of 732 Australian adults with an intellectual disability died in NSW over six years, many from causes or conditions that could have been avoided with more appropriate health care and monitoring.

A group of autistic women advocates prepared a submission for the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women. 

Media Release

The response from Disability Minister Christian Porter MP’s office on increasing autism diagnoses is very disappointing according to Bob Buckley, A4 Convenor. Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia or A4 is the national grass-roots advocacy group for autism spectrum disorder.

Recently, A4 obtained data from Government and reported that the number of children diagnoses with autism continues to increase at a significant rate, as it has for several decades. In June 2016, there were 73,166 (>2.4%) Australian children aged 5-15 years inclusive who had their formal autism diagnosis registered with the Commonwealth Government. For this age group, autism is now more common than intellectual disability.

Applied behavioral analysis is the most widely used therapy for autism, but some people say its drills and routines are cruel, and its aims misguided.

BY ELIZABETH DEVITA-RAEBURN

When Lisa Quinones-Fontanez’s son Norrin was diagnosed with autism at age 2, she and her husband did what most parents in their position do — they scrambled to form a plan to help their child.