Dear The Hon C Porter MP

Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia, known as A4, is disappointed that the Australian Government decided to defraud vulnerable autistic people and that it chooses to discourage autistic people from working.

Your government’s latest debt fabrication scheme

1. takes money from autistic people who made the effort to get some employment, and

2. sends a clear message to unemployed autistic people that unless they can get a permanent full-time job, they should not try to get work at all.

Peter Barrett

Any mother of a pre-school age child knows that life can be intense. There's the bathing, feeding, toiletting, playing, comforting, trips to emergency, more comforting – not to mention the constant funk of niggling sleep deprivation. In most families, though, this phase of life eventually passes.

But for mothers who care for children with a disability, the job is unrelenting.  In Australia, one in 12 children have a disability and in 95 per cent of cases, the mother is the primary carer.

Christopher Knaus

Autism Awareness Australia head says her son almost paid $3,000 to a debt recovery firm when he did not owe Centrelink anything. 

A call from a private debt collector was the first 21-year-old Jack Rogerson learned of his $3,000 debt to Centrelink.

Words by Mark White, Pictures by Nick Cubbin and Damien Pleming

What if the world stopped seeing autism as abnormal? Many people with Asperger's syndrome or autism embrace their condition. They seek respect for 'neurodiversity', not a cure.

The Hon Christian Porter MP

Minister for Social Services

Parliament House

CANBERRA ACT 2600

cc: The Hon Jane Prentice MP, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services

Dear The Hon C. Porter MP

FELICITY NELSON

Patchy services and a lack of national guidelines are delaying the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in children, leading to poorer outcomes, the AMA says.

Australia has fallen behind comparable countries in the timely diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), with the condition being picked up at a mean age of about six instead of the ideal age of two.

Iliana Grosse-Buening

The NDIA and Autism CRC are creating a national guideline for autism diagnosis to address delayed diagnoses and other issues rife across state health systems.

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition characterised by behavioural differences in children, but autism diagnosis is far from straightforward.

Now, the Cooperative Research Centre for Autism Diagnosis (Autism CRC) and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) have joined forces to implement a national guideline for diagnosing Autism Spectrum Disorder.