AEIOU News
AEIOU can help children with autism
Wed, 14 Oct 09
Autism is a lifelong neurological disorder that inhibits a person's ability to communicate and develop social relationships and is often accompanied by behavioural challenges. It can be a challenging condition to live with.
A 2005 study found 1 in 160 Australian children are on the autism spectrum making it more prevalent than childhood cancer, diabetes, and HIV infection combined and twice as prevalent as cerebral palsy.
Father of a son with autism and founder of AEIOU - for children with autism (a learning centre for children with the condition), James Morton said "autism has a profound impact on a child through their learning difficulties, but also impacts the child's family through potential social and vocational disadvantage."
Dr Morton said "the cause of autism is unknown and the dramatic increase in autism prevalence over the last 20 years remains unexplained."
"While there is no cure for autism, specific programs targeting the key early learning years can greatly improve the skills of these children and transform the lives of their families. Our AEIOU Townsville centre is able to offer high quality early intervention therapy to children enrolled in our program," he said.
"AEIOU - for children with autism is very proud of our program and their alliance with Best Practice guidelines. We believe by delivering a fulltime and customised program by autism trained therapists and teachers, we are optimising the chances of these children attending mainstream education and setting them on the pathway to eventual independence," he said.
AEIOU - for children with autism is a not-for-profit organisation and Queensland's only provider of full-time early intervention programs to children of pre-primary school age. They have five centres across Queensland located in Townsville, Toowoomba and three in greater Brisbane.
To find out more about AEIOU's early intervention program, visit www.aeiou.org.au or call 07 3802 0621.
AEIOU Townsville is located at 22 Ridley Road, Kirwan.
