Dear The Hon C Porter MP

Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia, known as A4, is disappointed that the Australian Government decided to defraud vulnerable autistic people and that it chooses to discourage autistic people from working.

Your government’s latest debt fabrication scheme

1. takes money from autistic people who made the effort to get some employment, and

2. sends a clear message to unemployed autistic people that unless they can get a permanent full-time job, they should not try to get work at all.

NICHOLETTE ZELIADT 

About one in four children with autism hit, scratch or otherwise hurt themselves, suggests an analysis of school and medical records for more than 8,000 children in the United States. Children who engage in self-injury tend to have mood and behavioral challenges, as well as cognitive impairment.

Peter Barrett

Any mother of a pre-school age child knows that life can be intense. There's the bathing, feeding, toiletting, playing, comforting, trips to emergency, more comforting – not to mention the constant funk of niggling sleep deprivation. In most families, though, this phase of life eventually passes.

But for mothers who care for children with a disability, the job is unrelenting.  In Australia, one in 12 children have a disability and in 95 per cent of cases, the mother is the primary carer.

Christopher Knaus

Autism Awareness Australia head says her son almost paid $3,000 to a debt recovery firm when he did not owe Centrelink anything. 

A call from a private debt collector was the first 21-year-old Jack Rogerson learned of his $3,000 debt to Centrelink.

 ANN GRISWOLD

Most children who lose their autism diagnosis develop related psychiatric conditions, according to a new study¹. The findings suggest that doctors should continue to monitor children once diagnosed with autism.

MENTAL health experts are calling for an end to the use of seclusion rooms at WA hospitals as it emerged one child was locked up for 12 hours.

A report by WA’s chief psychiatrist Nathan Gibson shows children with mental health problems were routinely locked up and restrained last year.

In a five-month period, there were 40 seclusion episodes for 20 children, with 75 per cent involving girls. Ten kids were held for less than an hour, 11 for up to two hours and fewer than five patients were held for an average seven hours.

A SUMMARY OF AUTISM DISCOVERIES IN 2016 AND WHAT THEY MEAN TO FAMILIES

For decades, the autism community has known that autism affects the entire family. Biological parents have been included in autism studies to examine where genetic mutations come from, but always with an eye for understanding the affected individual. This year in research saw a much bigger focus on family members of those with autism, particularly siblings. The goal of these studies is to understand the genetic and biological nature of autism so that help can be provided not just to those with a diagnosis, but to family members.

Many studies focused on what is known as the broader autism phenotype, previously explored in biological parents. The broader autism phenotype refers to some behavioral features of autism, including those in emotion, language, and social skills that do not meet the level of a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Rather, they have been termed anything from “intermediate” autism to “a hint of autism.” Joe Piven and James Harris hypothesized this year that Bruno Bettleheim may have tragically misinterpreted these features, in the absence of a true understanding of autism, as “refrigerator mothers.” Clinicians have urged scientists to note these symptoms in a way that does not create a new diagnostic category and noting certain social, personality and language characteristics in family members has been crucial for nailing down the underlying biology.

Words by Mark White, Pictures by Nick Cubbin and Damien Pleming

What if the world stopped seeing autism as abnormal? Many people with Asperger's syndrome or autism embrace their condition. They seek respect for 'neurodiversity', not a cure.

Amelia Hill

Experts report growing phenomenon of women recognising themselves as they research their children’s disorders

A “hidden pool” of women who have grown up with undiagnosed autism is coming to light as mothers researching their children’s spectrum disorders recognise themselves in their findings.