• To Siri, with love. How one boy with autism became BFFs with Apple’s Siri (New York Times)
• Autism diagnosis can mean isolation for South Asian Families (CBC News)

Usually ACT takes the opportunity in the News Round Up to look at the all the positive events that happened during April Autism Awareness Month. We can’t do that this year. Angie and Robert Robinson died on April 2, 2014, World Autism Awareness Day in Prince Rupert. It was several weeks before their family bravely brought their tragedy to public attention. One of the most terrible aspects of the deaths of Angie and her son Robert Robinson, was that she was looking for help and no one in authority offered her sufficient hope to carry on. There was no residential placement available for 16 year old Robert locally and his mother was exhausted.

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The heartbreaking and preventable deaths of a mother and her teenage son with autism in Prince Rupert earlier this month (see Province article) has highlighted the lack of a well-developed strategy in B.C. to respond to families in crisis. On April 25^th Global Unfiltered featured a discussion on the underlining issues we face in British Columbia.

The report on the 25th followed a month-long series by Global looking at autism: treatment, causes and the impact on families, featuring many families and professionals working and living with autism in B.C. Some of the stories they featured were:

• Canada lack national autism strategy
• Despite some funding, a diagnosis of autism is a huge financial burden
• Search to find cure for autism
• Surrey art program helps one young man with autism express himself
• Jenny McCarthy backtracking on anti-vaccination, but is it too late? 
• Early diagnosis of autism improves outcomes, saves mone

If you would like to share with ACT your experiences and concerns email [email protected]

On the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day, M.P’s from all parties gave M.P. Mike Lake a standing ovation as he spoke of his son, Jaden.

On Parliament Hill throughout the day, activities were organized to raise awareness of M.P.’s and Senators. Organizations from across Canada have come together to press for more action to help individuals with autism and their families. Representing B.C. are:

• Deborah Pugh, ACT’s Executive Director,
• Wendy and Sergio Cocchia from Pacific Autism Family Centre and
• Dan Goldowitz from NeuroDevNet.

Tonight Parliament Hill will ‘go blue’ to mark April 2, 2014, the 7th Celebration of World Autism Awareness Day since the declaration of the United Nations.