Background: In a cohort of adults with intellectual disability who were followed for up to 16-years, we investigated characteristics associated with frequent emergency department (ED) presentations, hospitalisation, and psychiatric care. Method: Community-dwelling adults with intellectual disability residing in Queensland, Australia, were followed…

Parents of children with ASD who had attended an Australian emergency department (ED; n = 421) completed a questionnaire relating to their experiences in the ED, including (1) child's reason for presentation and existing comorbidities, (2) quality of care during the visit (3) child's behaviour during visit, e.g. sensory responses to the ED…

This occasional paper is the ninth in a series on the National Quality Framework (NQF). The Education and Care Services National Law and National Regulations govern the minimum standards and requirements that all providers of NQF regulated services must meet, including health and safety requirements. Quality Area 2 of the National Quality Standard…

Anatomy is a key knowledge area in chiropractic and is formally offered in the undergraduate component of chiropractic education. There is the potential for loss of anatomy knowledge before the opportunity to apply it in a clinical setting. This study aimed to determine whether chiropractic clinicians retain a level of anatomy knowledge comparable…

Paramedics are an integral part of the Australian healthcare system and are increasingly requested to provide a growing array of services in support of improved community health. Currently there are over 6,000 undergraduate paramedic students. A pressing challenge is the development and sustainability of a dedicated group of university paramedic…

Autism is associated with a range of costs. This paper reviews the literature on estimating the economic costs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). More or less 50 papers covering multiple countries (US, UK, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands, etc.) were analysed. Six types of costs are discussed in depth: (i) medical and healthcare service…

A textbook model of a contagious disease, the dynamics of which are represented by the SIS epidemic model with saturating treatment, is considered. I show that this model, as originally formulated, is not dimensionally consistent. The model can be fixed by including a dimensional constant [alpha] of value one (with units individuals[superscript…

Students' educational and behavioural outcomes can be adversely impacted by the unique challenges posed by chronic health conditions. As some children and adolescents may live with these challenges throughout their education, hospital-based educators play a crucial role in reducing the impacts of health conditions on educational outcomes. This…

Knowledge about the quality of care delivered to children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in relation to that recommended by clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) is limited. ASD care quality indicators were developed from CPGs and validated by experts, then used to assess the quality of care delivered by general practitioners (GPs) and…

Otitis Media (OM) is an important global issue that can have a long-lasting impact on a child's life. There is no easy fix! For a family who has a child with OM, the ramifications can be short term and have minimal consequences, or they can be very complex and involve medical, educational, behavioural and wellbeing issues, and may even be…

In this article we review the medical, human rights, social and social interactionist models of disability, and consider how these differing perspectives have influenced the provision of educational services to students with disability in Australia. We contend that the shift in educational policy and provision, from supporting to including…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability (ID) are neurodevelopmental disorders with strong genetic components. Increasingly, research attention has focused on whether genetic factors conveying susceptibility for these conditions, also influence the risk of other health conditions, such as cancer. We examined the occurrence of…

Background: There is broad consensus within the disability field that the end-of-life care offered to people with intellectual disabilities should be of a quality consistent with that advocated by contemporary palliative care. In practice, however, various barriers are encountered when applying palliative care strategies to the end-of-life care of…

Students with chronic illness generally have higher school needs than their healthy peers. The research to date examining school support for these needs has been limited to qualitative methods. We collected quantitative data to compare the school needs and supports received by 192 students with chronic illness and 208 students without chronic…

The aim of this paper is to investigate from a discourse analytic perspective task authenticity in the speaking component of the Occupational English Test (OET), an English language screening test for clinicians designed to reflect the language demands of health professional-patient communication. The study compares the OET speaking sub-test…