Professor Malcolm MacLachlan:

I thank the Senator for her questions. There was one issue in particular she raised which I want to clarify, which relates to diagnoses and problems accessing diagnoses, etc. It is important from the point of view of the national clinical programme for people with disabilities to emphasis that our programme is orientated towards the implementation of the CRPD, and, therefore, we tend not to use medical terminology when describing people with disabilities. We talk about classifying or identifying people with disabilities rather than diagnosing them.

In addition, rather than this being just a semantic point, there is a more important element to this. Let us consider the condition of a child with autism. As members know, autism is now described as a spectrum disorder. To say that someone has autism does not actually tell us about what his or her needs are. There is significant heterogeneity among people's experience of autism. Not only is there a difficulty in saying when autistic experience starts and stops, in terms of a spectrum, but there is also a range involved. Two people could have autism and have completely different experiences. That is why there is such an emphasis on needs-led intervention. It is a great point because many clinicians overvalue the idea of a diagnosis because there is safety in diagnosis. There has been a tradition of seeing that as an end point of a process. That was what I was describing earlier. In the assessment and identification of people's needs there should never be an end point; it is a continuing process. In the identification of needs, looking at transitions across the life course, etc., should be an on going challenge for us.

The Senator raised another point but on my screen her image froze at the key point of her last question.