Mary Ward

A teenage boy who went missing at Heatherbrae, near Port Stephens, on Tuesday night has been found after he attended his school in the Blue Mountains on Wednesday morning.

The boy made his way back to his school at Katoomba this morning, NSW Police said.

Gay Alcorn @Gay_Alcorn

A sense of routine is essential for Morgan Tilly, who has non-verbal autism. So when coronavirus restrictions hit, her family had to create familiarity amid the uncertainty.

Morgan Tilly, 24, loves to swim. She seems to have a physical, sensory need to be in the water.

Luke Henriques-Gomes @lukehgomes

Disability campaigners say they are “deeply disturbed” by figures suggesting NDIS providers used unauthorised restraints such as strapping down or sedating people with disabilities more than 65,000 times in an 18-month period.

PIAC has commenced a discrimination test case on behalf of an eight-year old girl who has an autism spectrum disorder, after she was expelled from her primary school in Year 2.

PIAC’s client, Hannah Blundy, says that her daughter, Catherine, was expelled after her school failed to provide a range of supports and adjustments recommended by health professionals in time to keep her educational and social development on track.

The relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to autism and traits of the condition have held steady over multiple decades, according to a large twin study ¹.

Among tens of thousands of Swedish twins born over the span of 26 years, genetic factors have consistently had a larger impact on the occurrence of autism and autism traits than environmental factors have. The study suggests that genetics account for about 93 percent of the chance that a person has autism, and 61 to 73 percent of the odds she shows autism traits.

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych.

The Washington Post's depiction of autism has shifted over the years from a focus on "cause and cure" toward one of acceptance and accommodation, say the authors of a study that examined 315 articles published from 2007 to 2017.

Grace Tobin

The Australian chapter of an international church selling and promoting bleach as a cure for COVID-19 has been issued infringement notices totalling $151,200.

Autism researchers are starting to think that autistic and non-autistic faces may “speak a different language” when conveying emotion. This could mean the “social difficulties” often associated with autism may, at least partly, result from differences in the facial expressions produced by autistic and non-autistic people. It means we may need to re-think the idea that autistic people have difficulties with expressing their emotions and instead consider that non-autistic people may have trouble reading them.

Ry Crozier

Brings five consultants onboard initially.

Woolworths has kicked off a six-month “pilot program” employing five autistic technology consultants to work across several quality assurance and software delivery projects.

The program is enabled through a partnership with auticon, which has been in Australia since November last year, and coincides with World Autism Awareness Month.