A mother who won the right for her autistic son to be given a kidney transplant says children and young people are being “badly failed”. Ami McLennan says 17-year-old son William Verden is “doing great” after the transplant. McLennan fought...

Parents see their quality of life suffer when caring for an autistic child, says a new study. And the more severe the autism the greater the impact on the parents’ quality of life. Dr Dawn Turnage, of the University of...

Parents who see their children miss out on therapy detailed in their education, health and care plan (EHCP) should challenge it in the courts. That’s the view of parent Alicia McColl. She has appealed six times against council decisions over...

A family has won the right to have holidays for their two autistic sons funded through a direct payment. Suffolk County Council had funded holidays for the men, known as BG and KG, from 2014. However, that stopped in 2020....

Research has shown, for the first time, that three sub-groups of autism can be identified by measuring brain activity. Importantly, the research also showed that brain activity can predict how social skills develop. This new way of predicting how social...

Many autistic people with behaviours of concern may be in pain, says a new study. Researcher Dr Stephen Edelson says there could be a link between the pain and a “medical comorbidity”. Edelson is the director of the US-based Autism...

Restrictions on how much families getting direct payments can offer personal assistants (PAs) could be “unlawful”, says a lawyer. Direct payments are budgets that councils give to families to make their own care arrangements. Barrister Steve Broach wrote on Twitter...

Autism rates in the US have rocketed to nearly one in 30, new research reveals. Scientists at China’s Guangdong Pharmaceutical University found rates have risen from one in 40 in 2016. Researchers led by Dr Wenhan Yang used 2019/20 data...

Councils have been warned of the need to deliver therapies set out in children’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans. Michael King, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, issued the warning after finding that a Suffolk girl did not...

A new bracelet that monitors pain in autistic people is to be launched by a medical tech firm. French firm Mdoloris will launch the ANI Guardian next summer. The company promises that it offers “reliable, continuous, and non-invasive” data for...