Lisa Mayoh

When a child is diagnosed with autism, a family is changed forever. Everything is different. Everyone is learning to live a “new normal” that can take years to adjust to, and decades to master.

Careers, relationships, travel, goals: everything is put on hold while the child — their treatment, progress and needs — comes first, as most would agree they should.

But to raise a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), parents too must consider their own happiness.

Barbara Miller

"My favourite pizza is pepperoni pizza."

Kaspar has introduced himself to nine-year-old Joshua Whelan.

"Mine is cheese, feta and olives," said Joshua, encountering the tiny robot for the first time.

"Sounds yummy."

Kaspar is a moving, talking humanoid developed specifically for children on the autism spectrum, now being trialled for the first time in Australia.

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Re: FOI 17/18-285

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John Elder Robison

Alan Howe

The images cramming the frames of Harrison Fischer’s first years are of a happy child, but one often distracted by commands only he could hear.

At two he wasn’t walking and had no language. He was restless, unsleeping, would turn lights on and off, taps too, and endlessly spin things — like the tops of pots — and scratch glass.

Rick Morton

Around the world right now ­researchers are beginning to wonder whether the concept of an ­autism spectrum is a mistake.

The “thought experiment” was floated by renowned developmental psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen ahead of a global ­research conference on autism in The Netherlands last month.

What if, he proposed, intro­ducing the spectrum of disorders under one umbrella in the latest diagnosis bible was a well-­intentioned but ultimately misguided move?