•  Michael Fitzpatrick 

Autism's premature mortality rate

Natasha Bita

Half a million school students have a disability or learning ­difficulty, according to confidential data that exposes a surge in the number of children needing extra help in class.

A former Queensland police officer has left Bali amid allegations he was offering to cure children of autism and other diseases despite having no medical training.

Christopher William Savage returned to Amamoor in the Sunshine Coast hinterland after Indonesian medical authorities began investigating his activities last week, News Corp Australia reports

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015…

Alan Jones gives a monologue on what Bob Buckley thinks/says ... 

then talks with Prof. Andrew Whithouse.

This is for Alan Jones fans.

http://www.2gb.com/article/alan-jones-%…

For the first time, a nationally-consistent approach to supporting children with developmental delay or disability will exist with the release today of the National Disability Insurance Scheme’s (NDIS) Early Childhood Early Intervention (ECEI) Approach.

The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) has worked with some of Australia’s leading early childhood intervention practitioners and researchers to design a best-practice approach that is family-centred and importantly, supports children to achieve good outcomes on a case-by-case basis.

The $22 billion national disability insurance scheme agency will release a scant six-page “approach” to early intervention, its long-awaited strategy to deal with ballooning numbers of children diagnosed with autism and potential cost over-runs.

The six-page document has been criticised by the sector as being “laughably deficient” and contains no detail at all about how children will be included in the scheme with the key initiative being to split more than half of the 106,000 children with a disability into “family” support which won’t cost the NDIS any money.

A panel of autism experts commissioned to advise the National Disability Insurance Agency on the condition has recommended children with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis receive at least 20 hours a week of early intervention, delivered either one-to-one or in a small group.

In a report to be released on Friday, the panel, which comprised a range of academics, teachers and advocates,  backed the best practice intervention for young children, which can cost up to $80,000 a year.