Resources

In 2009, a living guideline process was established to ensure the Guideline is updated annually to reflect new evidence.

The Living Guideline Group (LGG) is an advisory panel of sectoral experts including individuals with lived experience, educators, health professionals, and service providers. Every year, the LGG prioritises an area to be updated. A comprehensive systematic review of the topic is undertaken by independent researcher and living guideline programme director, Marita Broadstock (INSIGHT Research).

The LGG debates the quality and consistency of this evidence and its applicability within a New Zealand service and cultural context. The LGG then develop recommendations and directions for good practice - the key outputs for the work.

Following sectoral consultation, a full account of the entire process including the systematic review is published online as Supplementary Papers to the guideline.

Completed Supplementary Papers to date cover topics including including behavioural approaches, pharmacological interventions,  supported employment, gastrointestinal issues, implication of changes to autism diagnosis in the DSM-5, social skills groups, cognitive behaviour analysis, ethnicity, sexuality education, supporting school transitions, and soon to be released updates on physical activity, and music therapy.

The New Zealand Autism Spectrum Disorder Guideline was published in 2008 and a 2nd edition in 2016. Internationally recognised for its scope and quality, the guideline provides an evidence-based resource for autistic people, their families and whānau, educators, service providers, policy makers, funders and researchers, both here and overseas.

The Guideline directs people toward practices that are known to work best, and away from those that don’t. Its recommendations for best practice aim to improve autism service delivery and coordination, and to ensure those on the autism spectrum lead better and more independent lives.

We are delighted to share that the Autism CRC have officially released full reports of our research project investigating autism diagnostic processes and post-diagnostic supports in New Zealand. It certainly has been a while since we started this project and shared initial results, so it’s very exciting to now be able to share the full research findings.

Key recommendations from the research focus on: (1) earlier identification of autism, (2) implementation of recommendations from the NZ ASD Guideline, and (3) access to post-diagnostic supports. We will keep you updated with our progress as we continue working towards these goals.

The Autism CRC release, including full reports can be found here.

A visual snapshot of the findings and the full Autism New Zealand report can be downloaded by clicking the buttons below.

Once again, we would like to extend a big thank you to everyone who contributed to and participated in this research.