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.

Australian officials currently estimate that about one in 160 children are diagnosed with autism, but findings from two new studies suggest it is much more common.

It is not clear whether autism itself is on the rise, or whether better diagnosis is inflating the figures.

...

Researchers from Melbourne's La Trobe University studied 20,000 children as they grew from infants to toddlers.

They trained baby health nurses to pick up early signs of autism.

Dr Cheryl Dissanayake is one of the lead researchers.

Bruce Bonyhady | May 07, 2009

The Australian (see http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25439463-32542,00.html)

AUSTRALIA'S disability support system is inequitable, fractured, under-resourced and slowly collapsing under the weight of its own inadequacies, while sub-optimally consuming billions of dollars of taxpayers' money each year.

• Paul Austin
• May 5, 2009

A $925 million social welfare package to help Victorians hit by the global recession will be a centrepiece of today's state budget.

...

The program, "A Fairer Victoria", is designed to help the state's most vulnerable citizens — including new migrants, Aborigines, families with disabled children and people with a mental illnesses — who are likely to suffer most as unemployment rises and the economy slows.

May 7, 2009 - 10:44AM

Young children with autism appear more likely to have enlarged amygdala - the part of the brain associated with registering faces and with expressing key emotions, according to a study released on Monday.

Described in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, the study compared the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results of 50 autistic children and 33 control children.

The children's brain scans were taken at age two and again at age four.

Note: for an update, see the comment below ...

Article from: (see http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,25419295-5001021,00.html)

By Jennifer Sexton

May 03, 2009 12:00am