La Trobe University has been chosen by the Federal Government as Victorian service provider under its new national Autism Specific Early Learning and Care Centres program.

In partnership with the Royal Children’s Hospital, the University will receive $4 million over four years to develop such a centre, co-located with its Community Children’s Centre on the main Melbourne campus at Bundoora.

From The Sunday Times
August 16, 2009

Health care in the USA is a major topic of discussion. Recent reports show autism is in the discussion (other than diagnosis, the health care sector in Australia largely ignores autism spectrum disorders).

According to media reports ...

One ad by an autism awareness group urges viewers to tell Congress that any plan that does not prevent autism insurance discrimination “is unacceptable.”

The media reports are:

More than 200,000 schoolchildren are paddled, spanked or subjected to other physical punishment each year, and disabled students get a disproportionate share of the treatment, according to a new study.

...

Among the cases cited in the report was that of a 6-year-old, first-grade boy with autism, who was paddled at his Mississippi elementary school. An assistant principal who the report described as weighing 300 pounds “picked up an inch-thick paddle and paddled him” on the buttocks, the report said.

from www.csmac.gov.au/.../2009%20-%206%20March%20-%20CDSMC%20Meeting%20Commu…

People with disabilities now have another avenue to complain about being discriminated against under an agreement ratified by 40 nations.

Australia has signed up to the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Optional Protocol.

The protocol, agreed to by 40 nation's, allows complaints to be lodged to the UN if all domestic remedies have been exhausted.

Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes said it was crucial to get a new national disability strategy up and running.

A SMALL centre for autistic children on Brisbane's northside may have won a visit from Kevin Rudd in a charity auction, but the Prime Minister showed yesterday that he is highly sensitive to autism in the broader community.

Mr Rudd yesterday morning met staff and students during a visit to the AEIOU Centre for Children with Autism at Bray Park, which won the prime ministerial visit as a prize at a charity auction.