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CliniKids’ new clinic in the Joondalup area is coming along nicely and is on track to open around the middle of the year.

April is Autism Month and to mark the occasion, we’re transforming our reception desk in the clinic to an AMAZING wall for our families to contribute to.

Nicki, Leah, Tracy, and Amy make up our wonderful Client Support team at CliniKids. The team was established in mid-2021 as services began to grow.

CliniKids held its inaugural Frangipani Family Day recently – an event organised to honour the wonderful contribution of its much loved and dearly missed colleague, the late Kate Sorensen.

The Client Support Team at CliniKids has some new faces! Nicki and Amy join our lovely Tracy.

Meet Leah – the latest addition to the CliniKids team. We asked Leah, our new Operations Manager, a couple of questions to get to know her.

Having a child on the autism spectrum (AS) is known to impact caregiver quality of life (QoL), time use, and stress. A co-occurring diagnosis of intellectual disability (ID) is common among children on the autism spectrum, with ID itself impacting caregiver outcomes. This study sought to understand how co-occurring ID in children on the autism spectrum may influence caregiver-related outcomes. Secondary analysis of survey data from caregivers of 278 children on the autism spectrum with (n = 62) and without (n = 216) co-occurring ID was conducted, exploring impacts on caregiver QoL, stress, coping, and time-use.

Several studies have explored relationships between parent broader autism phenotype and offspring communication, and have reported that autistic-like traits in parents are related to offspring communication difficulties and autism severity. However, past research has focused on studying such associations in childhood and we know very little about them in infancy. With accumulating evidence that interventions administered during infancy may be most effective in reducing ASD symptoms, it is imperative to examine whether relationships between parent autistic-like traits and child communication appear even earlier during this critical period of life.

Many children with intellectual disability live with medical comorbidities. This study examined the impacts of comorbidities on quality of life (QOL) of children with intellectual disabilities and whether impacts varied with caregiver perceptions that medical needs had been met.

Social communication difficulties in autism spectrum disorder have been associated with poor Theory of Mind (ToM), an ability to attribute mental states to others. Interventions using humanoid robots could improve ToM that may generalize to human-human interactions. Traditionally, ToM has been measured using the Firth-Happe Animations (FHA) task which depicts interactions between two animated triangles.