Children with autism will be given the opportunity to meet with Santa away from the noisy crowds this Christmas to ensure their wish list makes it to the North Pole.

Ocean Keys Shopping Centre has had a quiet word to the elves and has organised Father Christmas to meet with children on the autism spectrum in a calm, quiet environment.

People on the autism spectrum can find noisy and crowded places unduly stressful, making Christmas crowds particularly difficult.

Daile Cross

The young Perth man confined to a dingy bedroom in a Department of Communities house will be allocated an extra staff member to support him during the night.

Cathy Pryor

The realisation that my son Lucien saw the world in a different light came slowly, but there were small clues along the way.

Once, when asked to describe the colour of a banana, he answered white, not yellow. (When you think about it, he could well be right: while the skin is yellow, the flesh is much paler than that.)

And then there was the endearing way he followed the squares on a rug when he was learning to walk.

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In 1960s Australia very few people had even heard of the term autism, and with next to no supports available, families were pretty much on their own.

By Brittany Shoot

One in every 40 children in the United States could have autism or an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to a new article published in the journal Pediatrics.

By contrast, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) puts the estimate at one in 59 children having ASD nationwide.

The true number of children with autism in the U.S. may be somewhere in the middle. And the reason for that discrepancy may have to do with how the data was collected. The study published in Pediatrics relied on numbers from the 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health, which is based on reporting from 50,000 parents of children ages 17 and under.

Kristelle Hudry, La Trobe University and Cathy Bent, La Trobe University

Much of the research about including children with autism in mainstream classrooms is focused on school-aged children. Growing numbers of children with autism are diagnosed in toddlerhood, so there is increasing relevance for the early-childhood sector. Our new research shows, with support, educators can effectively include and teach children on the spectrum in mainstream childcare, alongside their non-autistic peers.

Programs to support learning in key areas - language, cognition and independence skills - have been found to be effective for many children with autism. But we need options that are also affordable and accessible within children’s local communities. Many families ferry children around to appointments with different professionals, employ therapists to come into the home, or travel long distances to specialist centres.

Research suggests children can be reliably diagnosed with autism before the age of two. It also shows that many of the behavioural symptoms of autism are present before the age of one.

These behaviours include decreased interest in social interaction, delayed development of speech and intentional communication, a lack of age-appropriate sound development, and unusual visual fixations.

By Robert Moran

Anne Hegerty, the stoic Governess on Seven quiz show The Chase, has earned praise from viewers for speaking openly about her Asperger's condition on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!

Hegerty, 60, is currently appearing in the UK version of the reality hit, being filmed in Springwood National Park on the NSW north coast.

After admitting she was struggling in the season's first episode, Hegerty opened up to her castmates about her experience with Asperger's, which she was diagnosed with at age 45.