Alesha Capone

Marina Ivelja knows the difficulties of looking for respite care for someone you love.

Mrs Ivelja is 16 years older than her older brother, who has autism, an intellectual disability, complex partial seizures and severe self-harming behaviours.

While growing up, she witnessed his diagnosis, integration with special schools and all the different services her family dealt with.

Mrs Ivelja said that this motivated her to establish her respite service, Beyond Disability Services, which opened in Bacchus Marsh during November 2021.

With a federal election on its way, autism-related politics is a current issue. This is a real chance for Australian politicians to take positive action and for the autism community to tell their prospective political representative what they can do to improve outcomes. Here is some material ...

The time has come for Australia to get serious about Autism

Shifting the dial on autism

Autism in girls is a rapidly evolving field of research and clinical expertise. Changes and improvements are happening across recognition, diagnosis and providing effective therapies and treatments. This is not before time.

Jannine Scott says funding had been ‘life-changing’, but now feels every time she interacts with the NDIA ‘it’s combative’

When Jannine Scott first joined her daughter Bethany on the national disability insurance scheme, it was “life-changing”.

The scheme funded in-home support workers for Scott, who has a spinal cord condition, and even paid for a power wheelchair and other assistive technology.

Research last year found early intervention therapy for toddlers reduced the likelihood of an autism diagnosis later in life. Now, something similar is being tried for newborns.

Eleanor Beidatsch

For some people with autism, speech is no more detectible than background noise, like the sound of a passing train.

Jackie Spinner

For the first time in decades, the nation’s top pediatricians have changed the checklist of developmental milestones for infants and young children to make it easier to identify delays that could be a sign of autism or other social-communication disabilities.

On Mornings with Virginia Trioli

Download NDIS too focussed on costs over people: autism peak body (6.39 MB)

The chief executive of the peak body supporting Victorians with autism has slammed the NDIS as too focussed on costs over people's needs.

It comes after the ABC revealed hundreds of people with autism and intellectual disabilities have had their NDIS funding slashed because the payments were found not to represent "value for money".