Loobie
I'm sure others will post with more info but did you see this in The Sunday Times? (sorry its rather long)
The prevalence of autistic disorder appears to be about 5 to 10 per 10,000 children, although better diagnostic techniques are pushing the figures up.
Asperger?s syndrome, a related condition, is thought to affect 26-36 per 10,000 children. Children with Asperger?s tend to do better academically than other autistics and often sit A-levels and go on to university.
60% of children with typical autism will grow up to be dependent on adults in all aspects of life. About 10% will grow up to lead ?normal? lives.
Parents usually become aware that something is not quite right when their child is aged between two and three. In the worst cases there is a complete lack of speech. Children seem unable to relate to other people; they are undemanding and passive, have difficulty in making eye contact and can be limited in their play.
The National Autistic Society provides a helpline for parents, 0870 600 8585, and a specialist education advice line 0800 358 8667. The Parents? Autism Campaign for Education (Pace) 020 7226 5525
A school set up by Nick Hornby and his former wife is blazing a trail for autistic children
Early last week eight-year old Danny went up to another little boy and gave him a hug. An everyday occurence in playgrounds around the country, you might think, but in this case it was anything but ordinary. Danny, son of the novelist Nick Hornby and Virginia Bovell, is autistic, like 76,000 other children in this country, which means he has enormous difficulty relating to others.
Autism is a mental disability in which the person?s capacity to make sense of the world is damaged. Although people with autism can see and hear, they find it hard to process what their senses are telling them. Autistic children, whose symptoms include temper tantrums, head banging, feet tapping and teeth grinding, are adrift in a world they cannot understand.
It is widely thought that such children, because of these difficulties, cannot form real friendships. But there Danny was, hugging his friend. For Bovell it was a ?magical moment?.
?I want him to continue making friends like that; with autistic children but also with those who are not,? she says.
With her former husband Hornby, Bovell helped set up Treehouse, a pioneering school for autistic children in north London. Open for four years, it has just been shortlisted for the Charity Awards 2002. A private school that independently raises money, though it also receives government funding, Treehouse uses a technique called applied behavioural analysis, which means children are monitored by the hour to see how they are progressing with a task.
Their tasks are broken down into simple steps and children are lavishly praised and rewarded every time they complete one. The intense monitoring ensures that if one technique isn't working, another can be swiftly substituted.
Experts are unanimous that early intervention by dedicated, specialist teachers can greatly help autistic children. But few state schools have the money or staff to teach children as young as three in the way that Treehouse can. And few, if any, state schools have the resources to provide the intensive one-to-one attention that pupils at Treehouse receive.
There are only 3,000 places in specialist schools or units ? including those in private schools such as Treehouse ? for the 76,000 autistic children in the educational system. Yet about 26,000 autistic children are thought unable to cope with mainstream schools, where many of them end up.
Following last month?s publication of a survey suggesting that as many as one in 86 children show symptoms of autism, there are signs that the disability is finally beginning to receive both more attention and more funding.
Ten days ago Bovell was at the Rosemary special school, a state school in Islington, north London, where Danny was a pupil before Treehouse was set up. Rosemary is to be merged into a new £13m state-of-the-art school that will specialise in autism. Bovell has agreed to join the advisory board overseeing the development of the new school and is delighted at the fact that it is being funded.
And not only the government is prepared to cough up cash. A donation from an anonymous benefactor has made possible the creation of a new chair at Oxford University. In October Dr Anthony Bailey, consultant child psychiatrist at the Maudsley hospital, will take up his professorial post with a clear brief. ?My task is to identify the causes of autism and then find a cure,? he says.
Bailey is convinced that within two years scientists will have identified one of the three or four genes linked to autism. He is at pains to point out that identifying the gene or genes is not a cure and that for some time autism is going to remain incurable, but he is optimistic about the future. In the meantime the key to treatment is early diagnosis and education.
?We know now that education is crucial. We can do a great deal to help children with very structured programmes and lots of one-to-one help,? says Bailey.
The Mental Health Foundation has calculated that the annual cost of autistic disorder in the United Kingdom is at least £1 billion. An autistic child who receives good teaching can be more easily integrated into society, thus reducing the cost of providing support in adulthood. But at present only 7% of the money spent on autism goes into education. The rest is largely spent on caring for adult autistics.
While 60% of children with typical autism currently grow up to be dependent on adults in all aspects of life, about 10% grow up to lead ?normal? lives.The importance of the £13m new school is that, for the first time in the public sector, different agencies will work together in a co-ordinated way.
Many parents, having received a medical diagnosis for their child, thereafter find that the doctors do not liaise with schools or the social services staff who can offer their child help. Rosemary?s head teacher Jim Wolger, by contrast, is in constant touch with both health professionals and social workers. Wolger is convinced it is the beginning of a new approach that will spread across the country.
Later this year a Department for Education and Skills working party, asked by the government to examine the level of autism provision, will produce a ?good practice? guide. The working party is made up of academics, health professionals and educationists as well as DfES officials and it includes Bovell, who represents Pace, the Parents? Autism Campaign for Education. She is optimistic that the report will endorse the approach she has been campaigning for ? early intervention to help children diagnosed as autistic by dedicated, specialist teachers. Crucially, she hopes that more money will be made available to enable that to become a reality for thousands more children.
?It sounds morbid but the question I, and the parent of every autistic child, asks is ?what will happen when I die?? ?Will anyone else be able to understand and love my child?? We are battling to get the provision that will make it much easier later on for Danny and all those like him to lead fulfilling lives. And it looks as if we are getting somewhere.?