Belinda Hitchcock knew instinctively something was different with her baby.

Her placid son Bradley, who started talking when he was 18 months old, had regressed to incoherent babbling. By the time Bradley was two he had lost the ability to speak. 

His mother was fobbed off again and again by doctors as she desperately tried to find answers. 

Jane Hansen

PARENTS of autistic children are spending millions of dollars a year on bogus treatments in the hope of a miracle “cure”.

Now there are fears the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be ripped off by these charlatans, who are ­already preying on desperate parents.

Diane Verstappen from Aspire Early Intervention, an evidence-based program, said parents with self-managed funds from the NDIS would be a prime target.

David Roy, University of Newcastle

Governments in Australia, New Zealand and the UK are failing children with disabilities by not providing necessary learning support and by allowing issues to permeate without intervening.

by  KATY HALL

Gold Logie winner Waleed Aly has opened up about his son Zayd’s autism, describing the nine-year-old as a “lovely little man”.

Paula Goodyer

"Boy recovers from autism after going gluten free."

"Gluten- free casein-free diet no remedy for autism."

Welcome to the conflicted world of diet and autism where opinion over the benefits of removing gluten (the protein in wheat, rye and barley) and casein (the protein in milk) from the diet is divided. Depending on which website you click on, the gluten-free, casein-free diet is either saviour or undiluted snake oil.

Cathy Pryor

I am a parent of three children, the middle of whom was diagnosed with high-functioning autism a year ago.

My son’s diagnosis, in previous diagnostic language, would have been known as Asperger’s. I still often use this term when explaining his differences, simply because most people’s notion of what autism­ is does not properly describe­ my son.