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Finn Higgins was known to users of the Public Address System discussion forums as a keen-minded, literate, witty and sensitive debater, and an asset to the community. What we could not know was the extent to which he was struggling with depression and anxiety in his personal life. These problems were related to an undiagnosed [...]

DISABILITY BILL PASSED
The first week of September was a busy week for Disability Issues. Tuesday night 2 September saw a significant step towards an inclusive New Zealand, with the passing of the Disability Bill that clears the way for New Zealand’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This work has been led by Minister for Disability Issues [...]

For those who don’t know me, I’m Matt Frost. I work as Policy and Information Researcher at CCS Disability Action National Office in Wellington. I am also proud to say I am an Aspie!
Last month, I was privileged to be able to attend ceremonies at the United Nations in New York. This is somewhere I [...]

The NZ Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline was launched at Parliament on World Autism Awareness Day, 2 April 2008. It is a world first in that it is a whole of life, whole of spectrum and whole of government approach to autism. It will be a living guideline so can be updated regularly and have gaps [...]

The diversity of Autism Spectrum Disorder: Who does it affect?  Tt has no class or race barriers, it’s invisible and among us all. Except I am still often kept hidden. I am intellectually disadvantaged, have learning disorders and yes I am on the autism spectrum, you could say I have an invisible disability.At times in [...]

Saving child cancer services at Wellington Hospital has been a major public health issue lately. However, this situation need not have arisen if some forward planning had been done in the 1990s. It takes about 15 years to train a paediatric oncologist and there is a global shortage of these and other skilled health professionals. [...]

Autism has featured in the mainstream news lately with a flurry of activity after the NZ Medical Journal of 12 October published an article by a New Zealand doctor working in Australia, proposing that Janet Frame had high-functioning autism (HFA). Rehabilitation physician Sarah Abrahamson of the Queen Elizabeth Centre in Ballarat analysed Janet Frame’s autobiographical [...]

Autism support as an election issue? Really? Oddly enough, that appears to be what’s happening in Australia.
 
On the same day that Labor leader Kevin Rudd used his campaign site (yes, there’s no election date, but you can bet there’s a campaign) to announce plans to introduce specialised child care and early intervention services for [...]

“The Government’s objective, broadly expressed, is that every person, whatever his level of academic ability, whether he be rich or poor, whether he live in town or country, has a right, as a citizen, to a free education of the kind for which he is best fitted and to the fullest extent of his powers. [...]

When a news organisation reports on a “new” treatment for autism, you should hear the alarm bells go off in your head — and that’s certainly the case with the Australian Nine Network’s report this week on the work of Matthew Israel, who runs the Judge Rotenberg Centre in Massachusetts.
Israel is a behaviourist who fits [...]