Funding for Young Children Expanded

by Seana Smith on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Here’s a press release about the Helping Children with Autism package- this will be welcome news to many families.

Media Release    Date: 22 September 2009

JENNY MACKLIN MP - Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs

BILL SHORTEN MP - Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services

Autism services expanded across Australia

Around 1400 children with Autism Spectrum Disorders will have easier access to early intervention services, following changes to the Helping Children with Autism package.

The changes will increase the number of service providers and allow families more time to use the $12,000 over two years available under this package.

This funding gives children with Autism Spectrum Disorders the chance to benefit from a range of early interventions, including one-on-one intensive activities and tailored group and individual programs.

From 19 October 2009, new arrangements will allow additional speech pathologists, occupational therapists and psychologists to participate in the autism program, subject to quality requirements.

Under the previous requirements, individual professionals could only be approved if they formed or joined consortia and operated as part of a team. Now these providers can join the program, increasing the number of service providers families can access across Australia .

Under the changes, families with children approved for early intervention funding will also be able to access early intervention funds until the child’s seventh birthday.

This has been increased from six years, and will give families an extra year to access autism services.

Families will still need to have their child diagnosed with Autism before their sixth birthday and see an Autism Advisor to access early intervention funding.

Parents who have since lost access to their approved early intervention funding because their child turned six, will be given an additional 12 months to use the funding.

Due to significant demand, some families have experienced waiting lists and have been unable to utilise their full funding package before their child had their sixth birthday.

Since October 2008, more than 3700 children have accessed services under the $190 million Helping Children with Autism package, the first national initiative to help families deal with this challenging disorder.

Currently there are almost 350 service organisations delivering early intervention in 536 locations across Australia .

Helping Children with Autism is making it easier for parents to access early intervention services for children with autism.

11 COMMENTS

Three websites worth a look

by Seana Smith on Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Until a nanosecond ago, I was going to write a blog called “Five Websites Worth a Look” and then I thought… hold on… five is too many to hit myself with at one time and I’ll bet other people feel the same way. Late of an evening I do still love to trawl through new websites, but three is the maximum I can deal with before either:

a)  sensory and mental overload kicks in and I need to reach for a glass of wine.

b)  I’m overwhelmed by exhaustion and need to reach for a glass of wine.

So lets wind back and let me present:

Three Websites Worth a Look

1.     www.servam.com.au

SERVAM is essentially a new Australian digital handbook for families, described by its authors as :  “An easy approach to integrating therapy and education in your family life.”

SERVAM is an arconym which stands for:

- Sensory considerations

- Environmental management

- Routines and planned change

- Visual supports

- Autism friendly communication

- Motivation

The handbook aims to assist families to work with their children and the team of professionals they use.   It is written by two experienced practitioners withj many years experience working with children on the spectrum.   It’s a new Australian resource worth knowing about, take a browse through the website and have a squizz.

2.   www.teaching.com.au

MTA stands for Modern Teaching Aids, and this website sells educational toys and resources for early childhood, primary and secondary students.  Your preschool or daycare facility will usually buy their toys from websites like this as will your schools.  The online brochure is HUGE and quite overwhelming, but worth getting to know.  It’s a terrific resource for when you are setting up therapy at home and just for good quality toys as presents.   Enjoy a pre-Christmas browse!

3.  http://www.blogher.com/identifying-and-avoiding-autism-cults

Autism mum Shannon Des Roches Rosa has written a long post on her blog about her own experiences with what she describes as “autism cults.”  It’s worth reading her opinions and point of view, and although she has tailored it for readers whose children are recently diagnosed there is still food for thought for those of us whose children were diagnosed long ago.

She’s written it as a cautionary tale and I can relate to that since I wrote my own biomed journey up as a Cautionary tale in our book.  I am not quite so anti-complementary medicines as Shannon seems to be, just a believer in one thing at a time and really trying to track whether changes are genuine or imagined.  Anyway, this American’s mom’s point of view is worth a read.

16 COMMENTS

Autism research on the home front

by Benison O'Reilly on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

I remember one autism parent commenting once to my husband, a doctor, and me that, as health professionals, we must be really into biomedical interventions for ASD. Actually the reverse is true; apart from an abortive attempt to give our son fish oil we’ve done nothing: no supplements, no GFCF diet, no nothing, really.  My co-author Seana, in her own words, has done everything—we are in that sense the veritable odd couple.

It’s not like I haven’t read up on the topic either. The reason I remain sceptical is that when it comes to neurological disorders medical treatments, as a rule, tend to be pretty disappointing:   drugs for Parkinson’s disease lose their effectiveness and side effects develop, treatments for Alzheimer’s disease  and MS are of limited benefit.  We can use medicines to prevent strokes and (if the stroke is discovered in time) to limit their impact, but once the damage is done the mainstay of treatment is always rehabilitation, teaching the patient to walk, talk,  swallow etc.—in essence recreating important connections in the brain.  As all the research is pointing towards autism being a disorder of neural connectivity, I feel that therapy—speech, occupational, behavioural, developmental— to create those crucial neural connections is the way to go.

Many parents who go down the biomedical path talk to me of secretly hoping for the ‘magic bullet’, the one mystical pill, potion or supplement that is going to fix their child’s autism. In a way it’s tremendously liberating not to have that hope.  I’m happy to witness the incremental, but consistent, improvements that therapy seems to bring.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m not keen for clinical research into biomedical treatments to be done.  I believe it’s possible that some of these treatments may offer real benefits to some individuals on the spectrum, but I want to see evidence from proper randomised, controlled trials.

I am therefore excited about all the new research being conducted.  Get on the Internet and go to ClinicalTrials.gov to witness the sheer number and diversity of clinical trials underway into ASDs. On an even more exciting note, we now have some home-grown research happening, courtesy of the UniSA’s Autism Research Group (ARG).  Headed by Dr Manya Angley, The ARG is a multidisciplinary team of researchers aiming to better understand autism and help develop more effective diagnostic techniques and treatments.  Read more about their research at:

www.unisa.edu.au/sansominstitute/researchactivities/groups/autismresearch.asp

The search continues apace…

38 COMMENTS