There have been only a handful of times in my life where I felt truly “seen”: one was my first visit to San Diego Comic-Con, and the other was my diagnosis, at 36, of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

After a lifetime of feeling distinctly different, I was so thrilled to finally have answers that I half hoped the consulting psychologist delivering my results might tack a “congratulations” on to their assessment.

Clem Bastow knew she felt different, but it took until the age of 36 that she got a diagnosis.Credit:Kristoffer Paulsen

Phil Hickey

An educator says she was left "disturbed" by a conversation she had with a school psychologist who is on trial accused of assaulting a young student with autism.

The boy was 12 when the alleged assault happened at the school.

Agni Angelkovska, 50, is on trial in the Perth Magistrates Court accused of slapping the male student and throwing a cup of water at him at Christ Church Grammar School in 2014.

Children with autism will be given the opportunity to meet with Santa away from the noisy crowds this Christmas to ensure their wish list makes it to the North Pole.

Ocean Keys Shopping Centre has had a quiet word to the elves and has organised Father Christmas to meet with children on the autism spectrum in a calm, quiet environment.

People on the autism spectrum can find noisy and crowded places unduly stressful, making Christmas crowds particularly difficult.

Daile Cross

The young Perth man confined to a dingy bedroom in a Department of Communities house will be allocated an extra staff member to support him during the night.

By Brittany Shoot

One in every 40 children in the United States could have autism or an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to a new article published in the journal Pediatrics.

By contrast, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) puts the estimate at one in 59 children having ASD nationwide.

The true number of children with autism in the U.S. may be somewhere in the middle. And the reason for that discrepancy may have to do with how the data was collected. The study published in Pediatrics relied on numbers from the 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health, which is based on reporting from 50,000 parents of children ages 17 and under.

By Robert Moran

Anne Hegerty, the stoic Governess on Seven quiz show The Chase, has earned praise from viewers for speaking openly about her Asperger's condition on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!

Hegerty, 60, is currently appearing in the UK version of the reality hit, being filmed in Springwood National Park on the NSW north coast.

After admitting she was struggling in the season's first episode, Hegerty opened up to her castmates about her experience with Asperger's, which she was diagnosed with at age 45.

Rick Morton

Angela Thompson

A magistrate is considering the fate of an Illawarra FaCs carer accused of assaulting a mute autistic boy, after the child’s parents took the extraordinary step of planting a recording device in their son’s bag in a bid to explain his bruises. 

In distressing audio recordings played to Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday, Lennard Michael Downes is heard calling the boy a "f---ing c---" and threatening to hit him if he doesn’t eat.

Rick Morton

The flagship National Disability Insurance Scheme is on track to cost more than $33 billion by the end of the next decade after executives in charge of the rollout for the first time singled out children with “high-functioning autism, developmental delay and sensory disabilities” as one of the key challenges.