The New South Wales (NSW) education department confirmed that students with special needs at Seven Hills West Public School were put into a fenced off area while other students spent their breaks in a larger playground.

The pen was reported to have just one tree, one bench and no grass.

The NSW opposition Liberal Party said separating autistic children was inhumane and "outrageous".

Andrew Constance, the opposition disability spokesman, said he had seen cattle yards in better condition.

"You cannot treat children with autism in this way," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"It is, I think, no doubt in breach of every discrimination act in the country."

One parent of an autistic child who attended another school said Seven Hills West was treating the children "like rats".

However, the school, which has 52 students with special needs, has defended its decision, claiming that the fenced-off area kept the children out of danger.

The school is located close to a busy road and teachers were concerned that children with "no sense of boundaries" could wander into traffic.

Michael Coutts-Trotter, the head of the education department, said the area was fenced off at the request of parents and was always supervised. He admitted the area needed to be grassed, but praised the school for the way it dealt with autistic students.

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Elementary school students here are working on a project to raise awareness of autism.

Based on a national campaign to "find the missing pieces of autism," students are creating paintings with missing pieces, much like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle.

The paintings will be sold at a silent auction on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. at Worden Art Studio, 4789 SE Dixie Highway, Port Salerno, with the proceeds going to pay for autism research, according to Kristina Burrows of the school’s Parent Teacher Organization.

"Each year the PTO chooses a charity to support. This year, we chose to help the local chapter of Autism Speaks," she said. She attributed the idea to Joy Burgener, chairperson of the event.

Burrows also noted that a group from the school called the "Stingray Shufflers" would participate in a walkathon at Jensen Beach High School on March 20 to raise money and awareness for Autism Speaks.

She said all 32 classes – some 650 children from kindergarten to fifth grade – hand a hand in the project.

"The kids really enjoyed doing the ‘missing pieces’ paintings particularly as they knew the project would benefit autism," said Burrows.

She said she was expecting a good turnout of parents and local business people. "Actually anyone who wants to support autism research is welcome," said Burrows.

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The United Way of Essex and West Hudson recently suspended funding of many programs, due to the national economic situation. Because of this, after 5 years, the afterschool program, Kidz Korner, hosted at the Branch Brook School by Autism Family Services of New Jersey (AFSNJ), a division of The Family Resource Network, will be ending its services mid-year. While Autism Family Services of NJ might normally have been able to absorb some costs, funds have been exhausted, threatening the program.

New Jersey was recently named a “Top 10 State for Afterschool”, according to the Afterschool Alliance’s Survey of NJ Households, because of a high increase in enrollment numbers since 2004. However, New Jersey is lacking in after school programs designed for children with developmental disabilities, namely autism, the prevalence of which is highest in New Jersey.

“The number one gap in services, identified by parents completing our annual Family Support Survey, is for after school care,” said Jessica Goldsmith Barzilay, Assistant Director of The Family Resource Network.

Finding care after school hours for children with autism and other developmental disabilities is markedly difficult for parents. Due to the nature of their disabilities, children frequently become isolated from the main stream. Children may require one-on-one assistance with social interactions, behaviors, or communication which most after school programs cannot accommodate without additional, trained staff.

AFSNJ has developed a program in Newark that brings children who attend school outside their district back to their home school for after care. By connecting these students to their own school district, Kidz Korner also connects them to all the activities and events hosted in their area they would otherwise not hear about, such as the annual bus trip to the Liberty Science Center.

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 Young artist Haley Moss knows that middle school can be rough. In her new book, Middle School: The Stuff Nobody Tells You About, Haley wrote an extensive “survival guide” for succeeding in middle school, a time she found particularly difficult because of her autism. The book is the latest release from Autism Asperger Publishing Company (www.asperger.net), a leading publisher of books about autism, Asperger Syndrome and related pervasive developmental disorders.

At just 15 years old, Haley is already an accomplished artist. Her work has been featured around the Miami area at such places as ArtCetera (www.artceteraboca.com), Grove Pop Art (www.grovepopart.com), and the Hertz Jewelers Gallery Experience (www.hertzgalleryexperience.com). She also donated a piece to the University of Miami/NSU Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, which sold for $1,200 at auction.

Most recently, Haley’s constant desire to express herself creatively and to help other girls with autism succeed led her to write Middle School: The Stuff Nobody Tells You About. In her book, Haley covers every aspect of middle school, from lockers to lunch and new classes to new friends. To balance out Haley’s personal experiences, there is also advice from middle school teachers and other girls on the autism spectrum.

“I would like to share my experiences and give you some advice so that your middle school years may be easier for you,” Haley writes. “I spearheaded the expedition, so to speak. I hope you can learn from my mistakes, admire my successes and try to do the right things and make good choices for yourself.”

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Lawrence Wang used to hate the shrill sounds of the flute. He'd clamp his hands over his ears to drown out his sister's piano playing. During music lessons, he'd fidget and fight with his teacher.

On Saturday, though, he tapped his feet while blowing happily on his saxophone, a member of an unusual band of special-needs performers.

Those who love Wang and his peers are thrilled to see how music calms their autistic nerves and becomes a unifying force in a world where they often don't easily fit.

"Don't ever give up on your children,'' said Lawrence's mother, Anna Wang of Fremont, who through her son, now 20, has become a prominent Silicon Valley autism activist. "You've got to open them up to possibilities. We so often write them off. It doesn't do our children justice. God has gifts for everyone.''

Later this month, Wang and 21 others have gigs at the East Side Union High School District and at a Santa Clara restaurant with his predominantly autistic band, the Magic Makers.

Autism is a bioneurological disease often marked by impaired social behavior, such as making scant eye contact and speaking repetitively.As the 1988 film "Rain Main" demonstrated, autistic people can also have geniuslike qualities. In that Academy-Award winning film, the lead character, played by Dustin Hoffman, was gifted in memory and math.

Some of the Magic Makers are gifted in music.

Wang's mother calls him a "music savant." He doesn't practice.

He doesn't sight-read. And he still mostly argues with his music teachers during lessons. But pop in a CD, and in an instant "Lawrence hears the music and almost simultaneously transposes it,'' his mother said. "It's really weird.''

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I subscribe to a number of autism feeds on Facebook- both neurodiversity and cure side of things.  The Candy Store podcast I don't normally listen to, they're usually very cure-side of things.  But this morning, they hosted an interview with <A href="http://www.autismone.org/content/autismone-candy-store-our-special-guest-dr-temple-grandin-phd-who-most-accomplished-and-well">Temple Grandin!</A>, heroine of the neurodiversity movement.

Max Braverman is not your typical 8-year-old.

The younger child of a central character in NBC's new "Parenthood," Max wears a pirate costume to school every day, fails to acknowledge a classmate's "hello" and bites a kid who calls him a "freak" (after Max keeps crumpling up construction paper).

After that incident, the school's principal gingerly recommends that Max see an educational therapist — whose evaluation we later learn in a heart-wrenching scene.

"She thinks he may have Asperger's … high-functioning autism," Max's mom (Monica Potter) tells her husband, Adam (Peter Krause), who's deeply in denial and argues why this couldn't be so. "Honey, there's something wrong with our baby," his wife says, pleading, "Please don't make me be alone with this."

This scenario is something many parents of "Aspies" will relate to, says Nicoletta LaMarca Sacco of Cliffside Park, who has a 12-year-old son with Asperger's syndrome and is coordinator of the Bergen County chapter of ASPEN (Asperger's Syndrome Parent Education Network). "Even if you are raising one child and don't have any siblings to compare him to, you can tell if something's off."

Although she and the other local autism experts we contacted had not previewed "Parenthood," based on our description of key scenes and the fact that one of the executive producers has a child with Asperger syndrome (also called disorder), they are hopeful the show will educate the public about this autism spectrum disorder.  read more »

Thai massage may be helpful for children with autism, according to a recently published report. The study involved 60 children between the ages three and 10, all of whom were autistic.

For the study, all children received either Thai massage or sensory integration therapy for eight weeks. (An approach sometimes used in treatment of autism, sensory integration therapy aims to help regulate the patient's sensory responses. Many people with autism experience dysfunction in their sensory processing.) By the study's end, both treatment groups showed improvements in conduct problems and anxiety. In past studies, researchers have found that massage may also improve sleep, classroom concentration, and social interactions in people with autism.

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Showtime says it plans to air the U.S. documentary "Dad's in Heaven with Nixon" in April, which is Autism Awareness Month.

Broadcast journalist Tom Murray wrote, directed and produced the film.

"Through candid testimonials, old photos and decades of home movies, Murray weaves together the saga of three generations of his family," Showtime said in a news release Monday.

"Murray's great-grandfather Thomas E. Murray was a brilliant inventor who held patents to hundreds of inventions -- second only to Thomas Edison. But the life of his son, John F. Murray was destroyed by depression and bipolar disorder, afflictions shared by his son, Murray's own father Thomas E. Murray II, a successful stockbroker who ultimately lost his family fortune.

"Later, Murray's brother Chris, who was born severely oxygen-deprived and who was encouraged by doctors to be institutionalized, was diagnosed with autism. While Murray's father and grandfather were ultimately destroyed by their refusal to seek treatment for their disorder and inability to cope with their life's disappointments, Chris shines through his autism -- his family's bombardment of love and refusal to believe the experts led him to become, among other professions, an acclaimed artist... . He channeled his dreams and frustrations through his craft and he now leads a prosperous, successful and independent life."

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Temple Grandin sees her autism as a gift, not a disability.

The professor at Colorado State University, who has become a prominent animal rights activist, spoke at the recent TED Conference in California about how people's brains work in different ways -- and how that's something that should be appreciated, not stigmatized.

Grandin, for instance, thinks in pictures, "like Google for images," she said.

She also grabs hold of details, a brain function she feels could help politicians.

"I get satisfaction out of seeing stuff that makes real change in the real world," she said. "We need a lot more of that and a lot less abstract stuff."

One of her biggest real-world accomplishments, she said, was when a mother recently told her that her autistic child had gone to college because of Grandin's inspiration.

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