ELEANOR HALL: It's estimated at least 30,000 children across the country have an autism spectrum disorder. Helping or educating an autistic child can be difficult as support services are rare and expensive.
But in the US, a new model known as the Self Advocacy helps children with autism to help themselves and Australian health professionals are urging the Federal Government to investigate adapting the method to schools here.
Stefanie Menezes reports.
STEFANIE MENEZES: When Valerie Paradiz's autistic son first started primary school in New York in 1994 he had a difficult time communicating and interacting with other people.
VALERIE PARADIZ: I saw that teachers really struggled although they seemed in part to understand that there were these components of just children needing to really identify what their own disability required of them in terms of navigating environment.
STEFANIE MENEZES: The university professor left academia soon after that and started an after-hours school to help students on the autism spectrum. A few years later she developed a new model she called the Self Advocacy Curriculum.
VALERIE PARADIZ: To help teachers and therapists and parents to learn how to develop ability in advocating for oneself. That ability can range from understanding your civil rights and entitlements to understanding what kinds of sensory or social differences you might have.
STEFANIE MENEZES: Ms Paradiz says many people on the autism spectrum find it difficult to communicate if they're unhappy or to ask for something. She designed the program to help them speak up.
VALERIE PARADIZ: If, for example, a person has a sensitivity to fluorescent lighting in that it may make it hard to read, so it helps you understand how you can scan any environment, identify what might be disruptive or just completely causing you to shut down and then devise a plan for what am I going to do about it? It could be as easy as asking, can I turn the lights off?
STEFANIE MENEZES: The curriculum was soon piloted in public schools across New York.
Chief program officer for the Autism Society of America, Dr Brenda Smith Myles, closely followed the program's roll-out. The results, she said, were groundbreaking.
BRENDA SMITH MYLES: What it is showing is not only can our children recognise their needs but they can advocate to have those needs met and they can take these skills and use them in an environment in which they have not been directly taught to use them.
I think that this could potentially mean all the difference in the world. This research is pointing to the idea that individuals on the spectrum can be good advocates for themselves.
STEFANIE MENEZES: In Canberra there is one person who's already heard of the curriculum.
The Learning Ways group is a not-for-profit after-schools program set up to help children on the autism spectrum.
Kara Potter is the director there and for the past year she's been testing it out on a small group. She agrees the results are impressive.
KARA POTTER: We saw some very significant changes in the sense of wellbeing that the children were expressing after being part of the ISA (implementing self advocacy) work that we did with them. In particular we saw children being able to start to discriminate and make decisions for themselves.
STEFANIE MENEZES: Currently intervention programs in Australia are limited and none of them are coordinated nationally.
Mrs Potter believes the curriculum could be very easily adopted by schools across Australia and she says the program would not only make a difference to children but their families as well.
KARA POTTER: I can just see that for Australia long-term that this holds a great advantage in promoting the better health and wellbeing of our growing population of children with autism spectrum disorders.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Kara Potter, the director of the Learning Ways group, ending that report from Stefanie Menezes.
Advice about a friendship situation
And the psych ward says ( a trigger and sensitivity warning)