My Daughter and I Were Diagnosed With Autism on the Same Day

By bobb |
mother and daughter wearing summer clothes on a garden path

Autistic moms can face judgment while struggling with their own diagnosis and advocating for their children.

By Jen Malia

“You convinced yourself that you and our daughter have autism,” my husband yelled. “You did all this research and told the doctor what he needed to hear to diagnose you!”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” I said. “You know about all the testing we went through.”

“I can’t believe you brought her into this,” he said. “You’re like those mothers who make up medical problems about their kids. Why can’t you just let her be a kid?”

Hunter's first autism-specific high school offers hope to students and their families

By bobb |

Penelope Green

LARA Cheney was studying early childhood in the late '90s in Newcastle when one of her casual jobs made an impact.

"I was working at Newcastle Temporary Care, at a respite home, supporting children attend social clubs and in their homes, and for a while I had a boy who was about seven stay at my house on a Tuesday night," she recalls.

500 children forfeited to state in NDIS standoff

By bobb |

New figures reveal the human toll of a five-year NDIS funding fight, with hundreds of families pushed to relinquish their children into state care.

By Rick Morton.

For the past five years, the National Disability Insurance Agency has squabbled with state governments over who pays to support children with a profound disability. In that time, hundreds of families have been pushed to the brink. The care they were promised never came.

Minister defends $4.6b NDIS underspend

By bobb |

Rebecca Gredley

Participants in the national disability insurance scheme will keep receiving enough support despite its $4.6 billion underspend, the minister responsible insists.

The Morrison government revealed on Thursday the budget was almost out of deficit, thanks to less money going to the NDIS.

NDIS Minister Stuart Robert has defended the underspend, saying no participant had received less money as a result.

He said 100,000 participants "couldn't be found" or were counted twice, suggesting less money was now needed for the scheme.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme is failing to improve access to education, families say. Why?

By bobb |

Katie Burgess

Less than half of Canberra families say the National Disability Insurance Scheme has improved their child's access to education, as experts say the scheme is not working well with state and territory education departments.

Only 48 per cent of participants aged 6 to 14 in the ACT have seen an improvement in their access to education under the scheme, according to the COAG disability reform council's latest quarterly report.

Mother's despair after NDIS rejects requests for hoist or lighter wheelchair to help her care for children with disabilities

By bobb |

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.

'The phrase that pays': Schools push parents of ADHD children to switch diagnosis

By bobb |

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".

More Victorian students diagnosed with severe behaviour disorders

By bobb |

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.

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