Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia

A new report on educating autistic children finds schools unable to cope and parents frustrated. ...

Teachers' tolerance levels were never very high where John Davis was concerned. The boy, who has autism and dyspraxia, was noisier than many other children with his condition and would become frustrated easily, especially in a confined space. ...

Autism gets much more coverage in the media in USA compared to Australia.

If you would like to see some of the coverage, especially the TV coverage, check out these web pages ...

• http://abcnews.go.com/health/autism
• http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AutismNews/

A4 has not reviewed the content of these webpages so it has no opinion about the content and does not endorse anything on those websites.

When Preston Brown was a young child, doctors diagnosed him with autism. Now they say he doesn't have it anymore.

"He's very aware of his surroundings," said his mother, Jamie Brown, who added that the changes in recent months have been drastic and that doctors have dropped his autism diagnosis.

"He communicates, he has favorites, he has opinions, he has humor," she said. "He makes friends, he is learning at warp speed, he's intelligent. He's happy, he's not sick anymore."

JEDDAH: To help the growing number of autistic children in the Arab world, the first scientific forum of autism centers in the Arab world began on Sunday night at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The event — entitled “Autism, Reality and Future” — was held under the support of Prince Talal, president of the Arab Gulf Program for United Nations Development Organizations (AGFUND), and was organized by the Al-Faisalya Women Welfare Society and the Jeddah Autism Center.

Angela Harper-Erini
November 12, 2008

Queensland health experts are seeking a national register of children with disabilities after claims that children have been wrongly diagnosed as autistic to secure disability funding.

Labor backbencher Dean Wells tabled figures in the Queensland parliament on Tuesday indicating that one in every 50 children in the state was diagnosed as autistic.

The figure, obtained from parliamentary library research of government records, was three times the international average.

Here is a very disturbing story from the media in the USA.

Autism in America: A Perilous Diagnosis
By RADHA CHITALE
ABC News Medical Unit
Nov. 6, 2008

Liane Willey's father always told her that, if she was ever in trouble, she should find a policeman and ask for help.

In college, Willey befriended a young campus policeman. Recalling her father's advice, she asked him to escort her home late one evening rather than walk alone. Instead, the officer drove away from campus, took her to his trailer home, and raped her.

Uncertainty over what causes the syndrome has become a trigger for wild speculation, says Mark Henderson

Autism is a highly heritable disorder, which is strongly influenced by genes. But it is not a genetic condition in the same way as Huntington's disease or cystic fibrosis, in which mutated DNA is the one and only cause. It is influenced by environmental factors, but what they are we do not yet know.