Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia

The Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is inquiring into the the NDIS's planning process.

A number of autism/ASD-related organisations, including A4, made submissions to the inquiry. The Committee published submissions here. The submissions by autism groups are:

2. Autism Family Support Association (PDF 580 KB)

5. Autism Spectrum Australia (PDF 143 KB) 

63. Irabina Autism Services (PDF 48 KB) 

69. Intervention Services for Autism and Developmental Delay (ISADD) (PDF 42 KB) 

The NDIS sent a letter to A4 responding, on behalf of the Minister, to A4's email 3/7/2019.

This letter is a leading candidate for A4's 2019 Suppository of Wisdom Award. You can view the letter via the link below.

Around the world, the number of people diagnosed with autism is rising. In the United States, the prevalence of the disorder has grown from 0.05% in 1966 to more than 2% today. In Quebec, the reported prevalence is close to 2% and according to a paper issued by the province's public health department, the prevalence in Montérégie has increased by 24% annually since 2000.

Tony Wright

Mr Fischer, AC, died at the Albury-Wodonga Cancer Centre, surrounded by close family members.

He had undergone extensive treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells, over the past 10 months.

Most of his treatment had taken place at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Autism Advisory Group (AAG) met on 1 August 2019 to discuss the implementation of the recently announced Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) remediation plan to resolve delays and backlogs for children with disability in accessing supports.

The AAG’s feedback on the National Disability Insurance Agency’s (NDIA) ECEI approach and delays experienced by families has been instrumental in the development of the remediation plan, announced by the Minister for the NDIS, the Hon Stuart Robert MP, on 26 June 2019 (External website). 

The United Nations is again reviewing Australia's response to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (A4) submitted a report on Australia's response to the CRPD in relation to the rights of autistic Australians. The key points A4 made are:

Australia’s laws and its legal system:

do not protect the rights of persons with disabilities
protect, and possibly promote, disability discrimination against autistic citizen in disability services.

Australian News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt labels 16-year-old environmental activist ‘strange’ and ‘disturbed’

News Corp’s Andrew Bolt showed “absolute ignorance” when he mocked the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg in a column for the Herald Sun, an autism awareness advocate says.

The high-profile columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers and Sky News commentator attacked the 16-year-old campaigner as “deeply disturbed”, “freakishly influential” and “strange” in the piece published on Wednesday.

Yuval Levental

Autism doesn’t have to define a person’s identity

The autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen published an article, “The Concept of Neurodiversity Is Dividing the Autism Community,” where he defends the neurodiversity perspective. There are several specific arguments in his article, but overall, he views autism as a biological difference, not a disability.

This article relates to people with disability generally; it is not specific to ASD.

Shannon Jenkins

Males and people with higher incomes are more likely to benefit from the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) than other demographic groups are, according to a new report.

The article by BMC Public Health, a journal which looks at the community impact of health policy and practice, studied how social determinants of health at the individual level can contribute to deep-seated health inequalities when combined with complex policy-delivery systems.

It found the ability to exercise choice is distributed unequally through personalisation schemes like the NDIS.

Atypical eating behaviors may be a sign a child should be screened for autism, according to a new study from Penn State College of Medicine.

Research by Susan Mayes, professor of psychiatry, found that atypical eating behaviors were present in 70% of children with autism, which is 15 times more common than in neurotypical children.

Atypical eating behaviors may include severely limited food preferences, hypersensitivity to food textures or temperatures, and pocketing food without swallowing.