Saskia Adysti

Albany will be the first town in Australia to trial an autism alert card.

The card will help authorities and emergency service providers to better understand people with autistic behaviour, as most patients find it difficult to communicate with others about their disability, particularly during an emergency.

The card will also have two emergency contact numbers of the card holder.

Great Southern Police District Superintendent Dominic Wood said the card would provide better security to those with autism.

FAMILIES and carers of children with autism have the opportunity to learn first-hand how intensive early intervention develops essential life skills and creates lifelong opportunities.

Local specialist autism early intervention provider AEIOU Bundaberg will open its doors to interested families today, to provide information and insight on how the AEIOU program develops functional communication, behaviour, social and independence skills and gives children and their families the best chance to reach their full potential.

The mother of a severely autistic teenager who ran onto the road in front of oncoming traffic in Melbourne's west has praised the good Samaritans who stopped and saved her son from the "life-and-death situation".

One of the three men who went to Darcy Mills' aid had his new ute stolen as he was chasing the 14-year-old along busy Rosamund Road in Maidstone on Tuesday.

Elvira Brunt, from St Morris’s popular Fravira Clinic, has a long history of charging vulnerable people for false cures.

She has been criticised for giving people false hope and dangerous advice.

The Advertiser has revealed in the past that she has been accused of telling parents to deny their children treatment or even painkillers, in one case suggesting a girl with leukaemia eat KFC instead.

South Barwon MP Andrew Katos said the site of Oberon High School in Belmont should be retained by the Government if the school is moved to Armstrong Creek as planned — not sold off and subdivided.

“The government shouldn’t be selling off the site, they should be retaining is for education purposes,” the state Liberal MP said.

Findings from two new studies reveal children diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental condition when they were two years old were more likely to attend mainstream primary schools.

They also had better ­cognitive and language skills when they were seven to nine years old than those diagnosed later.

Inspired by his son, Flinders optometry researcher Dr Paul Constable has commenced working with Yale Child Study Center and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital to research links between autism and the eye’s response to light.

Supported by a $US50,000 donation from the Alan B. Slifka Foundation, the research will look into the incidence of reduced light adapted electro-retinogram (ERG) b-wave amplitude in children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Greg White

A SOCIAL gaming group is being formed on the Coffs Coast for people on the autism spectrum.

Local retailer Good Games Coffs Harbour has formed a partnerships with the Mid Coast Communities' Ability Links to offer the program.

The first gathering will be held from 10am on Saturday, January 13, at the Good Games store on Harbour Drive.