autism – Page 3 – Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre

News

The story of Autism research in Australia: A conversation…

Cheryl Dissanayake is a professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, and the Olga Tennison Endowed Chair in Autism Research at the Olga Tennison Autism Research Center. She has been researching autism since 1984. Spectrum spoke with her about her path to autism science, the history of the field in Australia, and the importance of Melbourne hosting the 2024 INSAR annual conference, which Dissanayake will chair. In this conversation, Dissanayake mentions Margot Prior, Bruce Tonge, Lawrence Bartak, Ross Day, Stella Crosley, Marian Sigman, Beryl McKenzie and Olga Tennison — all notable names from Australia’s autism research community.

Identification and diagnosis

How to talk to your child about their autism…

With better awareness and acceptance, approximately one out of every 50 children is receiving an autism diagnosis. More and more families are deciding when to share this information with their child. Some parents worry that doing so will “label” their child, or make others treat them differently.

News

Suicide Prevention in Autism report and policy brief

On 9 December 2021, over 600 people attended the Australasian Society for Autism Research online conference Mental Wellbeing and Suicide Prevention in Autism. Following the conference, a select group of lived experience experts and researchers met to draw together content from the conference into the documents below.

News

Autism Honours Scholarship Recipients

The Sylvia Walton Scholarship for autistic Honours students (established in 2019) has now enabled 3 dedicated students to begin their research careers. We interviewed Kate Gore, Helen Andrews and Lauren Sargeant to find out their connections to autism, their personal philosophy, and how the pandemic has affected their year.

News

‘Being part of the final product’ – a student’s…

Josh is a La Trobe University student who recently finished (2019) a placement at OTARC. Josh helped us with a peer-reviewed journal submission and will be a co-author on this article. The article investigates predictors of quality of life, including sleep, mental health and well-being, in Australian autistic adolescents and adults from the Study of Australian School Leavers with Autism (SASLA) and the Australian Longitudinal Study of Adults with Autism (ALSAA). Josh is autistic and has offered valuable insights and perspectives to our research team, which we share below.

Health and wellbeing

Mental Health of Autistic Adults

Increasingly researchers are conducting studies looking at mental health among Autistic people. Recent findings have suggested that Autistic adults are more likely to experience several mental health conditions than non-autistic adults. Many Autistic self-advocates are speaking up about their experiences and encouraging researchers to do more work in this field.

Masking

Masking, Camouflaging & Compensating in Autism

Camouflaging, masking, blending in, compensating, impression management; we all do this to an extent. Imagine you’re invited to a work dinner with your colleagues. You get ready, thinking about what’s appropriate to wear, what to bring, and some topics to bring up (and avoid) if there are lulls in conversation. In Autism, the stakes are higher, and the task is more difficult. When social skills do not come intuitively, getting through this event requires cognitive effort, concentration and learning, a bit like doing complex algebra on the fly.

Autism and gender

Autism in Girls and Women

You might have heard that for every female diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Autism) there are roughly three to four males (Fombonne, 2009; Loomes et al., 2017).

But this ratio changes when you consider the person’s language, cognitive abilities, and even their age.

Autism perspectives

Neurodiversity and Participatory Research in Autism

The idea of neurodiversity is not new but has been gaining more attention recently. The essence of the term ‘neurodiversity’ is that “there is no single way for a brain to be normal,” as explained in a recently-published editorial by Simon Baron-Cohen, head of the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge (see here & here). Looking at autism from a neurodiversity perspective can help promote inclusion and reduce stigma. It means broadening our understanding to see how social systems can change to be more autism friendly, rather than focusing narrowly on the individual. Supermarket ‘quiet hours’ are a nice example of an environmental change that can have a positive impact for people on the Autism spectrum.

Ask an Autism Researcher

Is a change in diet effective for Autistic children?

Complementary and alternative treatments such as the Gluten and Casein-Free Diet (GFCF), while not recommended in national and international guidelines on autism intervention, are extremely popular among families of Autistic children, with a reported use between 52% and 95%.

Discover our latest news