Bec Whetham

Relationships can have their challenges, but what if the challenges relate to an inherent part of a person?

A Melbourne therapist said that was the question being raised for many couples where one partner did not know they were autistic.

Melbourne-based autism therapist and special education teacher Jo White has spent the past 20 years working with autistic children, adults and their parents.

SHANNON Manning wakes at 3am every day to care for her two children with disabilities.

Prone to regular attacks from her kids’ meltdowns, she has nursed broken bones and bruises in order to provide for the children she loves more than life itself.

Her non-verbal daughter Meadow, 7, suffers from severe autism and epilepsy and is in a wheelchair. Her boy Madden, 6, has Cantu syndrome.

As the sole carer she is lucky if she sleeps for four hours a night; her only assistance the presence of a carer for six hours each weekday.

Andrew Whitehouse, University of Western Australia

A new study that combines data from over 20 million births has found that a caesarean section delivery is associated with autism spectrum disorder (autism) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Zach Hope

The father of an autistic teen bashed unconscious by up to eight men at the weekend has threatened to protest on the steps of Parliament over what the family perceives as government inaction on "gangs" in Melbourne's suburbs.

Caitlin Fitzsimmons

One in five parents of children with ADHD have been urged by their school to seek a different diagnosis as a means to gain funding for teacher's aides and other support for their child at school.

Teachers are pushing families of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to try to obtain a diagnosis with better support in the school system – mainly autism, but also oppositional defiance disorder (ODD) or extreme anxiety. The national survey of 1184 parents of children with ADHD found 21 per cent had experienced pressure for "escalated diagnosis".

A woman who says she has been denied a new wheelchair for her severely disabled daughter has invited her local MP — who is also the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme — to sit in on a meeting about the girl's needs.

Gold Coast resident Shannon Manning said seven-year-old Meadow had severe autism and required a wheelchair to go out in public, but had been knocked back because she was "not disabled enough".

Ashley Argoon

Victorian school kids are being diagnosed with severe behaviour disorders at rocketing rates as a principal claims children have to reach “crisis level” before they get support.

The number of children funded for severe behaviour — disruptive and sometimes violent conduct — is escalating, with almost double the cases to four years ago.