A cat named Chicken, who is an anxiety-battling companion to an 11-year-old autistic boy, has scooped a national award.

The 10-year-old moggy brings comfort and support to Elliot Abery from Thatcham in Berkshire.

Chicken came top in the “Furr-ever Friends” category after being picked by a panel of judges, which included England Lioness Ellen White.

The accolade celebrates “tales of friendship” between cats and children.

The annual National Cat Awards, held on Thursday, were organised by welfare charity Cats Protection and honour the feline friends that have gone above and beyond as pets.

A survey asking for the views of autistic people, families and professionals on a new independently appointed Commissioner to promote and protect the rights of autistic people has been launched today.

The survey, jointly run by the National Autistic Society Scotland and Scottish Autism, aims to collect views which will be compiled into a report to influence politicians and the Scottish Government, as to the commissioner’s role and responsibilities.

The survey contains 10 questions in total, and asks about the challenges that autistic people and families face and what the priorities of a Commissioner should be. The survey is anonymous and intended for people in Scotland only.

A warm welcome to the latest membership update from the National Autistic Society. Here you’ll find news, advice, services we provide and how we are looking to make your membership more meaningful.

To celebrate our 60th anniversary, we aimed to raise £600,000 in 60 days.

With the help of our members, supporters and volunteers, we raised over £700,000! We want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has contributed, donated or supported this fundraising drive.

You are helping us continue our work to create a world that works for autistic people through:

Creating the biggest source of autism knowledge in the UK through our branches, and advice and guidance on our website.

Making sure the online community is there for autistic people and their families when they need it most.

Our Education Rights Helpline, helping families to know their rights.

Enjoy some summer reading with the latest issue of the Spectrum magazine!

In the ‘being yourself’ edition, Lavender Girl describes spending a lifetime trying to fit in. Kayleigh writes about masking at school and work, while Nick says how hard it is simply to be yourself.

We also have details of our 60th anniversary art competition – the winning adult entry will be published in the Spectrum in October. The deadline for entries is 14 August.

There are also plenty of new short stories, poems and articles. Visit the Spectrum magazine online to read issue 111, or to download the PDF.

A controversial bill that will recognise British Sign Language (BSL) as a language in England, Scotland and Wales is set to become law after being passed by both Houses of Parliament.

BSL-users have been warned that the private members’ bill will provide them with no new rights, but it has still secured significant support from the Deaf community.

The British Sign Language bill, originally introduced by Labour MP Rosie Cooper, herself a child of Deaf parents, secured widespread support from backbench Conservative MPs and the government.

Members of the House of Lords approved the bill yesterday (Wednesday) after it had already been passed by MPs.

Doctors knew in 1973 that the epilepsy drug sodium valproate posed a risk to unborn children — and ordered that warnings be removed from packets. Almost 50 years and 20,000 disabled babies later, it is still being prescribed to pregnant women

The moment her newborn son Sebastian was handed to her, Catherine McNamara knew something was terribly wrong.

His tiny hands were deformed, unnaturally twisted and facing in the wrong direction. One was missing a thumb.

At first, she and her partner tried not to worry as their baby was taken off for x-rays and examinations. “We thought it was something they could fix,” she said.

But a few days later, the couple were devastated as doctors told them Sebastian’s deformities were permanent — and had been caused by the drug McNamara had been taking to control her epilepsy.

She burst into tears. “I just felt so guilty. All I could think was, what have I done to him?”

Having been very proud sponsoring the National Autistic Society’s “Left Stranded” project, which is a long-term response to the mental health crises lots of autistic children and adults face, we are now able to share the “Autism & Mental Health Q2 year 2 Interim Update” PDF.

Click here or on the image below.

An open letter to Rishi Sunak MP: Invest now to end the autism diagnosis crisis.

The National Autistic Society wrote to Rishi Sunak MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, ahead of his Spring Statement on Wednesday to tell him he must end the autism diagnosis crisis, by providing the NHS with long-term funding for diagnosis services across the country.

Here is our letter…

Friday 18 March 2022

Dear Chancellor of the Exchequer,

Re: Invest now to end the autism diagnosis crisis

The latest NHS figures suggest that 88,000 people in England are waiting for an autism diagnosis assessment. This is a huge number and it is increasing.

A diagnosis can be life-changing and is vital to getting help and support. But without proper long-term funding for diagnosis services across the country, we are worried that many adults, children and young people will still have to wait months or even years for a diagnosis. In lots of cases, that will also mean struggling without support at school, work or home.

NICE guidance is clear – no one should wait longer than three months between being referred and first being seen. Yet far too many of the 88,000 people currently on the list will wait much longer. The coronavirus pandemic has undoubtedly made this worse but the autism diagnosis crisis long precedes this – and it’s been stopping autistic people getting timely support for many years.

The Government can end the crisis. In its recent National strategy for autistic children, young people and adults: 2021 to 2026 the Government commits to “making demonstrable progress on reducing diagnosis waiting times”. In the first year of the strategy, the Government has provided funding test new diagnosis pathways. Over the next four years of the strategy, rolling out these new pathways will need more investment. Without this, the Government won’t be able to honour its promise. The number of people waiting for an autism assessment will keep on growing and more people will be pushed to crisis.

You have the opportunity to end the autism diagnosis crisis in your Spring Statement, by allocating the urgent funding that the NHS in England needs to both increase the number of assessments carried out and tackle the backlog. No one should have to wait years for a life-changing autism diagnosis.

Thank you for reading this letter. We, the many thousands of people across England waiting for an autism diagnosis, and their families, look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Stevens
Chief Executive
National Autistic Society

According to new research, a significant percentage of people who died by suicide were likely autistic but undiagnosed.

Written by Edward Gould-Brown

Last year, neurodiversity charity, Autistica [1], estimated that there are over half a million of mostly undiagnosed autistic adults in the UK. The charity highlighted that those undiagnosed autistic adults ‘are often misunderstood and marginalised, commonly experiencing mental health problems and disadvantages.’ In response, Autistica started a campaign to ‘identify this lost generation of autistic adults’, so they can begin to receive professional support.

To all teachers,

We’d love your school to join us this World Autism Acceptance Week (28 March – 3 April) and help improve understanding and acceptance of autism.

Sign up to our free Autism Practice Education newsletter and receive practical classroom strategies, case studies, tips and our new resources designed specifically to mark World Autism Acceptance Week.

They’re a great way to teach your students all about autism, the importance of being kind, celebrating differences, and more!

ICD-11 2022 release

ICD-11 is now officially in effect for the national and international recording and reporting of causes of illness, death – and more.

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) provides a common language that allows health professionals to share standardized information across the world. The eleventh revision contains around 17 000 unique codes, more than 120 000 codable terms and is now entirely digital.

All Member States are encouraged to follow their commitment to move on to ICD-11 documented with their approval of ICD-11 at the 72nd meeting of the World Health Assembly in 2019, and use the most current version of ICD for recording and reporting mortality and morbidity statistics both nationally and internationally.

New in ICD-11 2022

Over 40,000 sign our petition to save autistic children’s futures

On Tuesday, we went to Westminster to tell Nadhim Zahawi, Secretary of State for Education, that he has to act now to save autistic children’s futures. 42,237 campaigners signed our petition calling on him to make autistic children a priority in the upcoming SEND review.

We want to thank every single person who signed and shared our petition. We are amazed by the response that we’ve had and we know that it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our campaigners. We know how important this issue is to you, and we will not stop campaigning until all autistic children and young people have the support they need to fulfil their potential.

You can read more about what happened at the petition hand-in in our news story.

This campaign is in response to shocking findings from our School Report 2021. After surveying 4000 autistic young people, children and their family members we found that:

• A quarter (26%) of parents waited over three years to receive support for their child
• Three quarters (74%) said their child’s school place did not fully meet their needs – this has almost doubled since 2017
• Only one in four parents are satisfied with the special educational needs support their child is receiving
• Less than half of autistic children are happy in school.

It’s not fair that parents are being left exhausted by a system that is broken. And it is not fair that autistic children’s futures are under threat, because their school does not have the capacity to support them.

The Government’s upcoming SEND review is an opportunity to change this. That’s why we took our campaign to Westminster – to send a clear message to Nadhim Zahawi that he needs to fix the broken SEND system.

42,237 of you supported that message. We’ll let you know when Nadhim responds.

Together, we can create a world that works for autistic people.

Thank you,

Beth Robertson
Campaigns Manager
National Autistic Society

World Autism Acceptance Week: 28 March – 3 April 2022.

Get involved in our Super 60 Challenge or download Anne Hegerty’s Spectrum Quiz!

We need to clarify that there are certain criteria under the NHS “Right to Choose” which have to be fulfilled in order for Axia to be able to carry out assessments.

We can only carry out the following:
Assessment for Autism only
Over 18 years of age

We also require confirmation from either the GP or CCG that funding is approved before an appointment is made.

Please Note: The Right to Choose is only available if your registered GP is in England.

We’re delighted to share our new strategy. It’s the first strategy we’ve published and has 6 goals that explain what we hope to achieve from 2022 to 2027.

This 5-year plan was produced using feedback from the PDA community (with surveys run in 2018 and 2021), feedback from professionals and our own experience. From our surveys we heard that PDA individuals are still struggling to:

• Access a diagnosis identifying a PDA profile, with lack of research given as a reason for this.
• Have their individual needs as PDA individuals understood.
• Access the personalised strategies needed to help.

Our 5-year plan aims to tackle these challenges and improve the quality of life for PDA individuals and those who support them.

Our 6 goals

Crisps, dry crackers and plain pasta may not be the most exciting foods but they are often the staples relied upon by children with a little-known eating disorder.

Nine-year-old Otto from Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, has the condition ARFID, which stands for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder, meaning he avoids many different foods.

Otto says he would like to try new things, but often feels scared.

“It sometimes feels like food is inedible,” he says.

“I feel like I’m either going to gag or throw up. I’m not familiar with the taste and that just makes my body feel like ‘oh my gosh, this isn’t like something you’ve had before…what is it? what is it?’.

“Then my body tries to get rid of it, which makes me gag.”

Otto mainly lives on a diet of plain pasta, alongside a handful of other foods.