• Studies could help in diagnosis and treatment
• Work 'moves research significantly ahead'

• Anna Patty Education Editor
• April 29, 2009

ELIZABETH GAWTHORNE has spent 11 years working with children at Marrickville High School yet is still classed as a temporary employee.

As a school learning support officer, she works alongside classroom teachers, helping children with special needs.

While satisfying, the job provides no security from one year to the next. Further training opportunities are limited.

"I have 11 years of experience and can be told I'm not wanted next year," she said.

from The Age, Letters

24/4/2009

from The Age

• Carol Nader and Farrah Tomazin
• April 22, 2009

Meredith Ward with her son Grant. Photo: Angela Wylie

GRANT can tell that he is different from the other kids he goes to school with. The 13-year-old has moderate autism, interfering with his ability to learn.

from The Age, Letters

ONLY parents of children with disabilities and their advocates would spot the irony in Bronwyn Pike describing students with disabilities with challenging behaviours as being "through no fault of their own" (The Age, 22/4). Ms Pike's descriptions seems to be at odds with typical school responses to these behaviours — detention/ suspension/expulsion.

April 20, 2009

A teenage British boy with a form of autism is stranded in Australia because he is too scared to travel by air or sea home to England.

Thomas Hill's family moved to Sydney in January 2008 to start a new life but decided to return recently because they were homesick.

But 16-year-old Thomas, who has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, is still in Sydney with his mum Lisa because he has panic attacks about travelling.

April 15, 2009

Ethan Johnson ... cycled from Brisbane to Sydney over two weeks.

A 15-year-old Brisbane boy with Asperger's syndrome who disappeared for two weeks and rode his bike more than 950 kilometres to Sydney did it to prove to "bullies'' he wasn't an idiot, his mother says.

During his six-day, dawn-to-dusk haul down the east coast, Ethan Johnson slept at truck stops, under bridges and ate at fast-food restaurants.

It is a condition on the autistic spectrum that has long been known to affect boys, who may have obsessive interests or struggle to make friends. Now an expert says many more girls have it than was thought, and failure to diagnose them can lead to misery and self-harm. Amelia Hill reports

Amelia Hill

9/03/2009 12:00:00 AM

I am not anti-vaccination but I am in favour of parents being given factual information regarding vaccinations so they can make informed decisions as to what they have their children vaccinated against and when they do it.

Jack Waterford's diatribe in Times 2 (March 5, p2) against people who decide not to vaccinate their children is both ill-informed and, in some cases, factually wrong.

I will restrict my response to just one area the link between autism and certain vaccines.