Sam Davis wants to groom elephants when he is older, taught himself to read before the age of five and is autistic.

These are just some of the elements that make the five-year-old who he is, says mother Jessica Davis, who has made it her mission to intervene as little as possible in his condition.

“Something we did from the diagnosis is say: no, this is Sam and this is who he is,” Ms Davis said. “We have tried from day dot to see how he operates in the world — he just has some differences.”

by Andrew Whitehouse

From the moment a child is diagnosed with autism, their family enters the unknown. Conference halls are lined with salespeople, letterboxes are stuffed with pamphlets, and life is transformed into a whirlwind tour of a fantastical array of therapies and potions that are positioned as the “cure all” for their child’s difficulties.

As school goes back for the year, the Senate report into the systemic failings of the education system for students with disability is very timely. In the myriad emails principals will see in their inbox, I hope mention of this report is one of them. 

The report calls out the system's "entrenched culture of low expectations" towards students with disabilities. If parents score a school that has an enabling culture towards disability, you have won the "lottery". I know this first-hand because my feisty mother managed just that.

Children with disabilities are frequently discriminated against in Australian schools. It’s an issue that has been ongoing for years, with reports showing that little has improved since 2002.

As children go back to school this week, an advocacy group is calling on education providers to be mindful of the lasting effects of bullying, particularly for children with autism.

In Australia, children with disabilities only receive additional government funding if they fall into a recognised disability category. As a result, schools and parents often come under pressure to obtain the “right” diagnosis for their child. Such misdiagnosis carries a hidden cost.

Donald Grey Triplett was the first person to be diagnosed with autism. The fulfilling life he has led offers an important lesson for today, John Donvan and Caren Zucker write.

After Rain Man, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, the next great autism portrayal the stage or screen might want to consider taking on is the life of one Donald Grey Triplett, an 82-year-old man living today in a small town in the southern United States, who was there at the very beginning, when the story of autism began.

The autistic brain is a beautiful mess. There are more synapses in this lump of grey matter than in an ordinary brain. It’s these connections between the brain’s neurons — which regulate signals — that orchestrate the overwhelming sensitivity to outside stimuli.

Noises are louder, smells are stronger, touch is more invasive, light is brighter. For the autistic person, there is a pervasive intensity to the experience of the world around them that makes living in it that much more difficult.