03 December , 2015

A Shorten Labor Government will provide an additional $2 million a year to peak disability advocacy organisations to ensure people with disability have a powerful voice in the debates and decisions that affect their lives.

On International Day of People with Disability, Labor affirms its support for advocacy services and recognises their crucial role in the successful rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Nelle Frances, Managing Director at AspergerChild.com

The Shaddock review (ABC News) released this week, highlighted that there's a lack of clear policy regarding the escalation of behavioural issues in the Education sector:-

By Lauren Swick Jordan

You’ve all heard it by now – one out of every 45 kids has autism.

With numbers that large, it seems to me that the next logical discussion needs to be around mental health. Mental health of the caregivers, of the siblings, but most importantly, of the person with autism.

We had a scare a few days ago.

• 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.

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