British parliamentarians focused attention onto autism in what was referred to as an ‘important debate on autism’ in the Palace of Westminster last Wednesday 7th March 2007 at 4 pm. The debate on autism was initiated by the influential parliamentarian, Lee Scott MP for Ilford North in the United Kingdom.
Among those who participated in the debate was Rt.Hon. Iain Duncan-Smith, former Leader of the Opposition.
Speaking for Her Majesty’s Government, Bill Rammell MP the Minister for Higher Education conceded the government needs to do more for all people with autism.
Lee Scott’s debate has put the spotlight firmly on autism and Asperger’s Syndrome – now a very serious and educational issue in the United Kingdom.
The debate was called for by parents and carers of a 11 year old boy with autism -Ivan and Charika Corea of the Autism Awareness Campaign UK have asked the Prime Minister to introduce a raft of measures to help people with autism and Asperger’s Syndrome before he leaves office in the summer of 2007.
The Autism Awareness Campaign UK has called on the Government to undertake a 10 year program of building specialist autism schools, building autism units in mainstream primary and secondary schools, tackle the failure of some secondary schools in bringing in educational strategies to deal with autistic children in a mainstream setting, tackle the whole question of bullying and autistic children, the provision of respite care, osteopathy and recreational activities for autistic children, access to further education, higher education and labour market opportunities for young people with autism are among the issues they wish the Prime Minister to address before he leaves office.
MPs have promised to take these matters to Government Ministers in order to help and support parents, carers and people with autism.
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2 users commented in " UK Autism Westminster Debate: British MPs focus attention onto Autism "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI hope there will soon be a discussion of a major risk factor for non-familial autism which is the advancing age at which men father babies.
Brand new study showing that one risk factor for special education in Finland is a Father 40 or older
1: Eur J Paediatr Neurol. 2007 Mar 6; [Epub ahead of print]Newborns at risk for special education placement: A population-based study.Mannerkoski MK, Aberg LE, Autti TH, Hoikkala M, Sarna S, Heiskala HJ.
Department of Child Neurology, Hospital for Children and Adolescents, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland.
OBJECTIVES: To establish the contributions of birth weight (BW), gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and parental age on risks for special education (SE) placements in school-age children. METHODS: A population-based sample of 900 school-age children attending the following full-time SE groups: at level 1, children had isolated neurodevelopmental, physical, or other impairments; at level 2, borderline to mild intellectual disability (ID); and at level 3, moderate to severe ID. Three hundred and one children enrolled in mainstream education formed the control group (level 0). For all children with siblings, we defined familiar forms of learning disorders as having a sibling in one of the SE groupings. We performed our analysis for the entire cohort as well as comparing risk factors within the familial and non-familial types of SE groupings. RESULTS: In multinomial logistic regression analysis, age of father 40 years, low BW (
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