Australian pediatricians are seeing more new patients with autism, accordin­g to a study that shows the proportion of first consult­ations taken up by the diagnosis has risen from 5 per cent to 15 per cent in just five years.

Associate professor Harriet Hiscock, from the Murdoch Child­rens Research Institute, yesterday said a follow-up to her previous study, which was published in theMedical Journal of Australia, found autism was taking up more of the pediatric workload.

In Sydney, Tina Lopez and her husband, Arron Dickens, are dipping into their savings to pay about $42,000 a year out of their pockets for their son James because a federal program stumps up only $12,000 over two years. In South Australia, where The Australian revealed children with autism now made up 46 per cent of the delayed, oversubscribed National Disability Insurance Scheme trial, the Andrews family had to fight to get a $40,000 package from the scheme for son David, 4.

Sean Parnell

Health Editor, Brisbane

Up to half of Australian children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder are expected to have higher needs warranting support from the National Disability Insurance Scheme, according to a leading academic.

Rick Morton

Social Affairs Reporter, Sydney

Children with autism-spectrum disorders have flooded the trial of the National Disability Insurance Scheme in South Australia and make up almost half of all participants, contributing to a blowout in the numbers which would be replicated across the country when the full scheme launches.

Editorial note: The conclusion reached in these these stories is contentious/disputed. Autism is not "swallowing up" other diagnoses as is suggested. Other information is available elsewhere, for example here, here and here.

The way autism is diagnosed has led to an apparent tripling in cases in recent years that does not reflect reality, researchers say.

Rather, more youths with intellectual or developmental disabilities are being reclassified as autistic, the United States-based study published in American Journal of Medical Genetics found.

University of Western Australia Telethon Kids Institute's Andrew Whitehouse said the trend was "almost certainly the same in Australia".

The prevalence of autism in the US was just one in 5,000 in 1975.

It leapt to one in 150 in 2002, and reached one in 68 in 2012, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This new research provides the first direct evidence that much of the increase may be attributable merely to a reclassification of individuals with related neurological disorders rather than to an actual increase in the rate of new cases of autism," the study authors wrote.

When human beings see a face and socially engage with another human, whether it’s a stranger or loved one, we get a hit of the feel-good chemicals oxytocin and dopamine. It’s fleeting and subconscious a lot of the time, but it reinforces us to seek out and enjoy that face again.

1. Kristelle Hudry

   Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology, La Trobe University

2. Andrew Whitehouse

   Winthrop Professor, Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia

UNSW scientists have discovered a link between autism and genetic changes in some segments of DNA that are responsible for switching on genes in the brain.

UNSW scientists have discovered a link between autism and genetic changes in some segments of DNA that are responsible for switching on genes in the brain.

The finding is the result of a world-first study of the human brain that identified more than 100 of these DNA segments, known as enhancers, which are thought to play a vital role in normal development by controlling gene activity in the brain.

The overwhelming sense of feeling ‘different’ is familiar to many of the 230,000 Australians living with autism. But how does that actually play out as an adult in day-to-day life? 

A first of its kind UNSW-led study is aiming to better understand how adults with autism experience their world.

The overwhelming sense of feeling ‘different’ is familiar to many of the 230,000 Australians living with autism. But how does that actually play out in day-to-day life?

The trial of the $22 billion Nation­al Disability Insurance Scheme in South Australia has twice as many eligible clients as predicted, is 12 months behind schedule and is such a disaster that the federal minister responsible priv­ately calls it the country’s “worst” pilot of the scheme.

The agency delivering the NDIS has sought to hide the exten­t of the overrun in the state by releasing figures it knows are out of date.