• A cage was constructed at a Canberra school to restrain an autistic student
• A photo of the ten-year-old boy inside the cage was pinned in a classroom 
• The autistic student was put inside the steel cage once in March, 2015 
• The principal who authorised the cage still works for the ACT Directorate
• Eight other staff  were 'reprimanded' or offered counselling, none fired 

SAN DIEGO — San Diego-based Illumina announced Wednesday that it will take part in a “big data” project that will make genomic data of autism patients and their families available for analysis over the Internet.

The Hartwell Autism Research and Technology Initiative will upload 5,000 genomes involving autism from the National Institute of Mental Health genetics repository to Illumnia BaseSpace, a cloud-computing system powered by Amazon Web Services.

Researchers will be able to access BaseSpace to analyze the data and determine the genomic variation across the samples.

JO ABI

This month, a Blacktown mum Fawziya Adam was sick and had to go to the doctor.

The mother of five was a carer for her autistic son. Instead of taking him to the doctor with her, she decided to chain him up.

“I used to take him everywhere with me,” she explained to Fairfax, “but now he is strong.”

“This time I was scared because the last time he ran away and pushed me and people in the street and the chemist. That’s why I didn’t take him with me.”

By Charles Elias

Nelson Bay’s Les Merrett, who with wife Judy founded the charity Autism Action in 2010, has joined with Harbourside Haven board chairman Gerry Mohan and the Port’s not-for-profit Sporting Hope group to establish a learning, training and rehabilitation centre.

It is envisaged that the facility would come under the umbrella of the soon-to-be-introduced National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and funded via government grants.

Disabled students at a country high school are being forced to use a cramped, run-down transportable classroom next to a rubbish disposal area — even though the facilities were deemed “inadequate” by the Education Department more than a year ago.

Parents say Narrogin Senior High School’s education support unit for students with disabilities and special learning needs is in such poor condition they are reluctant to send their children there.

NOVEMBER 16, Lucy Hodula

OVER the past week there have been some awful stories about parents struggling to cope on their own with children who have disabilities.

The overwhelming message from advocates is that you don’t know what goes on in other people’s homes and how hard it can be.

Lucy and Gabor Hodula know that better than most. Their 25-year-old son Mark is severely autistic, and every day is a struggle. Lucy has written this to give outsiders an insight.

***

Ehsan Knopf

A letter between a Queensland girl, born with autism, and her mother has gone viral just hours after it was shared to Facebook.

The letter, an exchange between seven-year-old Cadence and mother Angela, was written after Cadence - overwhelmed by negative news stories about children with autism - took shelter beneath her schoolteacher’s desk.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme's latest site in Sydney's west has been swamped with demand from children with disabilities, with more than twice as many applications than expected.

The National Disability Insurance Agency, which administers the scheme, estimated 167 young people would apply for support in the first month of the Nepean Blue Mountains program, which started in July.

Figures from the agency show almost 400 applicants were deemed eligible in the first month of the scheme, which is initially being offered to children and young people under 18.

Early intervention can play a vital role in the development and wellbeing of a child with Autism, but what is the cost and who will pay for it? Dr Nancy Sadka has some answers for parents and carers.