Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia

Warning: this article is extremely disturbing.

Forty-one seconds. That’s how long it took for police to shoot Courtney Topic, after the 22-year-old was seen brandishing a knife outside a Sydney Hungry Jack’s. Three years on, her family retraces her story in a plea for better police training in mental illness.

By Greg Callaghan & Megan Gorrey

Nicholette Zeliadt

Autism is significantly more common in boys than in girls. This skewed sex ratio has been recognized since the first cases of autism were described in the 1940s. The exact reasons for the ratio remain unclear. It could be rooted in biological differences between the sexes. Or, some experts say, it may be an artifact of the way autism is defined and diagnosed.

The Australian has confirmed with senior National Disability Insurance Agency sources that 22,000 autistic children aged seven to 14 are being “function­ally assessed”. Those who fail to meet the criteria are having their support partially or entirely ­removed.

VPSC is holding an art competition for people with disability. We’d love for you to help us promote it.

The winning artwork will feature on the Victorian public sector’s first ever Disability Employment Action Plan. VPSC is developing the action plan in close consultation with government departments, agencies and offices. The plan is a collective commitment by the sector to provide flexible and sustainable employment for people of all abilities, lifting representation to 6% by 2020.

Judy Bewer

Ill-informed debate over eligibility and arbitrary line-drawing through the autism spectrum is the result of years of neglect of ­autism research and a failure to engage with those who had the ­answers. It was a perfect storm waiting to happen, and the gales have now blown in.

Rick Morton

The man heading the $22 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme “cannot guarantee” that specific levels of autism will remain on a list of conditions that gain automatic entry to the program, just weeks after the agency accidentally published a document that changed access guidelines.

Dear Dr Nugent and Mr De Luca

A4 is happy to assist you and the NDIA. We are keen to be "moving forward". A4 is happy to meet "later in the month" as you requested.

A4 keeps trying to improve outcome for autistic people in Australia. We believe a meeting with you has real potential.

Rick Morton

A radical plan to alter the definition of autism will be the cornerstone of a push to restrict access to the $22 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme, which could see thousands of people with substantial support needs removed from the system entirely.

The agency in charge says the proposed redesign will dismantle the idea of an autism “spectrum” — an idea coming back in vogue globally — and place people into specific “subtypes” based on individual characteristics.

Rick Morton

A secret plan to restrict the access of autistic people to the $22 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme would prevent them from qualifying “automatically” for taxpayer-funded support as part of a sweeping overhaul to rein in costs.

The Weekend Australian has confirmed bureaucrats have been working on a strategy since late last year to pare back the number of people with autism receiving funding packages.