Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia

On 21 October 2021, the Senate referred the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Participant Service Guarantee and Other Measures) Bill 2021 to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report.

A4 made a submission about:

Neryssa Azlan

Peta Rostirola received her COVID-19 vaccine at a mass vaccine site and thought the whole process was smooth and easy.

But when her 13-year-old son, Pablo, became eligible for the vaccine, she knew it would be a different story altogether.

Pablo is on the autism spectrum, and while experiences may vary, people on the spectrum may deal with sensory issues if they visit a new or crowded place.

Morgan Liotta

The newly developed group will deliver professional and peer support to GPs in the fields of autism, ADHD and neurodiversity.

GPs are often the first point of contact for individuals and families affected by ADHD and ASD.

Neelima Choahan

When Victoria opens up later this month, Janine Terry is scared her only son will be locked up at home forever. 

For the past five months, the 62-year-old has been desperate trying to get him vaccinated. 

Tim, 39, has severe autism, osteoporosis and epilepsy. He is also terrified of needles. 

"In May … I asked our family doctor about Tim being vaccinated," Ms Terry said.

Charlotte Gore

The ACT government's Access and Sensory Vaccination Clinic was designed to be a space to support vulnerable Canberrans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, but some members of the autistic community say the facility comes up short.

Key points:

Please see below links to Easy Read COVID-19 vaccination resources now available:

Andrew Whitehouse, The University of Western Australia; Jonathan Green, University of Manchester, and Kristelle Hudry, La Trobe University

A therapy for infants showing early signs of autism reduces the chance of the child meeting diagnostic criteria for autism at three years of age. That’s according to our new research, published today in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Therapy for children with autism often begins after receiving a diagnosis, which usually doesn’t occur until after the child turns two.

Judy Brewer, a high-profile disability sector advocate whose son Harrison has autism, said she was angry the ­government appeared to be blaming people with disabilities for cost blowouts when it was likely the $24bn scheme’s financial assumptions were wrong.

Dear Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds,

Subject: Government’s ongoing war on autistic Australian

Autism Aspergers Advocacy Australia (A4) deplores media reports (see Annex below) saying that “The Minister responsible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme has blamed an uptick of Australia’s aged, autistic and obese people for the ‘unsustainable’ rising costs of the service”. Your government’s war on autism is unacceptable. We complained about it before and were ignored. 

Aged autistic people are one of the smallest subgroups in the NDIS: there were just 125 of them in June 2021, just 0.8% of 14K+ NDIS participants in that age group. While their funding level is higher than average for the NDIS, we doubt the numbers in this very small group will increase significantly for some time. We have not found NDIA reporting on obesity; we doubt the NDIS even has reliable data on obesity of NDIS participants. 

When asked "How well is Australia respecting people's human rights?" answers indicated that people with disability are at most risk of missing out on their right to education: see https://rightstracker.org/en/country/AUS?as=hi&tab=atrisk