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For the last few years I have been researching autism policy in New Zealand, and completed my PhD thesis at the end of 2011. I was lucky to receive funding from the New Zealand Health Research Council for three years through their Disability Research Placement Programme.  Unfortunately, the HRC ceased this fund last year so [...]

Bill Sutton, the principal at Thorndon Primary school, retired last month after 45 years in education and over two decades at Thorndon School. New Zealand has about 2500 schools and principals are appointed and leave every week, so why is this retirement worth commenting on?
It’s because he’s just the principal you want your local school [...]

Reprinted from http://strangeringodzone.blogspot.com/ 7 August 2011 with permission from the author Penni Winter.
Paula Jessop, a Kiwi aspie and friend of mine, was preparing a presentation on ‘Adults with ASD’ recently, and asked us aspies on Facebook, what were ‘The Top Five Things We Want People to Know About Adults on the Spectrum’. The resulting discussion [...]

This is an updated version of  an article in the Parent to Parent National Newsletter Autumn 2011.  Thank you to Kate for sharing her story and Parent to Parent for permission to reprint. Kate is from Southland and is involved with Parent to Parent and Autism New Zealand.
 
2009 started off beautifully for my family. I gave birth [...]

From Bat, Bean Beam (13 September 2010), ‘a weblog on memory and technology’ by Giovanni Tiso of Wellington. Republished here on humans with his permission.
http://bat-bean-beam.blogspot.com/2010/09/questions-asked.html
This is not our daughter’s story, so much so that I won’t even call her by name. It is the story of sixteen months spent battling to ensure that she have [...]

The Herald on Sunday features an interview with Nigel Latta by Deborah Coddington, weirdly condensed into this brief about Oppositional Defiance Disorder.
In the full print story, Latta dishes out jumbo servings of his usual faux common-sense parenting advice, lurching into this bizarre statement:
“But I’ve been around the family area more than 20 years, long enough [...]

 Our son Marcus was born after a long and arduous but seemingly straightforward delivery. Birth is traumatic at the best of times, but the following day was pretty traumatic too. Around midnight I received a call from my wife tearfully telling me that Marcus had been having seizures, and had been rushed into the Newborn [...]

 
 The act requiring the new educational standards regime was passed through all its stages in Parliament in 24 hours just before Christmas 2008. It did not go to a select committee where the public, autism advocates, and those with lived experience, could make submissions. This was unfortunate as some of us could have pointed out the negative implications [...]

Caroline Quick and Andrew Dever are two articulate young adults, who, like many other emerging researchers, are seeking research funding for their work. They have recently left Allenvale Special School in Christchurch and Caroline is currently attending a two year life skills course at CPIT and Andrew is at Skillwise.  They are now conducting their own participatory focus group [...]

This newsletter from the Ministry of Health outlines what has been happening regarding the NZ ASD Guideline Implementation, which has been mentioned on other occasions on Humans. Sometimes it might seem that there is not much progress on the ground, but there has been a great deal of activity behind the scenes, which will hopefully mean improved supports and services eventually. [...]