Opinion by Emily Willingham

It’s a pleasure to have the abundance of choices available this year in selecting the best online places to read news and views about autism online. Some sites stand out as reliably respectful of autistic people and disability in general, and this year offered up some truly remarkable storytelling about the past, present, and future of autistic people.

I started writing online about autism more than 10 years ago. Even as the Internet and social media were emerging as a gathering place, accommodation and access point to others that autistic people had never had before, it also was a place where one could stumble at every turn onto the worst of the worst: People who brutalized children with false treatments falsely promised, news stories that infantilized, belittled and dehumanized autistic people and an incessant drumbeat of fear and paranoia about that monster, Autism.

Dear The Hon. Christian Porter MP

Your reference: MC15-015074

Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (known as A4) received a response from James Kemp in your Department.

I am sorry, but I cannot see how his response relates to the matters mentioned in the meeting request (see http://a4.org.au/node/1118). Please consider the meeting request that we sent to you on 5/11/2015.

regards

Bob Buckley

Convenor, Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia

21/12/2015

• Box built to 'calm' clients at Melbourne disability centre
• Disability minister horrified, families sickened by 'coffin-like' box
• Police launch probe into Aspect autism service amid abuse claims, box scandal

Independent assessors are to examine the use of restraint at Australia's leading autism service in the aftermath of a scandal involving a large box built to lock up people with disabilities.

The Andrews government will order the independent review at Autism Spectrum Australia (Aspect), one of the country's largest disability organisations, to scrutinise staff's use of restraints on clients.

When the scattered afternoon sunlight seeped its way into a restaurant in the heart of Mackay, Nekea Blagoev's creativity, widely splashed across the walls, came to light. 

According to Nekea, the first milestone in her life did not involve walking or talking.

Instead, her earliest memories involve painting and drawing.

"Mum was always constantly painting the walls because I was always drawing on them," Nekea said.

"It was more of a hobby when I was a kid, and it just developed into something bigger than I could have ever dreamed of," she said.

Curtin University researchers are testing a system to enable employers to identify ways to best accommodate workers living with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

Using the tool employers should be able to better recognise the strengths of employees with ASD, identifying potential difficulties in the workplace and providing strategies to modify the work environment.

A BOTANIC Ridge mum says two independent Christian schools in Casey tried to reject her daughter because she has autism.

Michelle Brown said she was shocked at the treatment of her five-year-old daughter and it was only after inquiries by the Berwick Leader that one of the schools agreed to accept her back next year.

Ms Brown said her daughter started at the first school in 2013, before her diagnosis, but was told last year she could no longer attend due to a lack of disability funding.

People with autism are more than twice as likely as their peers in the general population to die prematurely¹. The finding, published 5 November in the British Journal of Psychiatry, adds to evidence suggesting that gaps in preventive care can cause serious health problems in people with autism.

NSW police are investigating allegations a child with autism was disciplined by being locked in a dark cupboard at a Newcastle school.

The boy's father, David Roy, raised the allegations of abuse against his seven-year-old son at Kotara South Public School.

Mr Roy said his son, who is now home-schooled, was traumatised.

"It's suggested that he was locked in a darkened cupboard with heavy objects around him," he said.

"He is indicating to us that he was grabbed and hit."

Mr Roy said his son shuts down when remembering the alleged abuse.

PhD student Alexa Pohl took on the impressive duty of speaking at a thematic briefing for the United Nations (UN). Ms Pohl, who has just entered the final year of her PhD, was asked to speak as a disability advocate at a briefing for the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 and defines what constitutes discrimination against women, as well as outlining the ways in which such discrimination can be eliminated. The Convention represents a large body of work by the Commission on the Status of Women – an intergovernmental body dedicated to gender equality and empowerment of women – and is often referred to as the international bill of women’s rights.