By Gymnastics NSW Creshone Roshananth – 7, gymnast in a GymAbility class through Gymnastics for All  Questions answered by his mum Niveditta. Chreshone is autistic. What do you like most about gymnastics for your son?  My son loves gymnastics. I have noticed my son’s confidence level increased ever since he started gymnastics also gymnastics is helping him to overcome his diagnosis related challenges.  Can you please tell us a bit more about your son and the pathway you took to entering gymnastics?  My son was diagnosed with Autism (level 2) when he was around 3 years ..read more

By Gymnastics NSW Brielle Mann – 16, coach and rhythmic gymnast  Brielle has a limb difference. What do you like most about gymnastics?  My most favourite thing about gymnastics is the amazing people that it surrounds me with. I have made some of my closest friends through gymnastics and the supportive environment that it creates has helped me grow and improve over the years. I am always trying new things and learning new skills at gymnastics, helping me to push my abilities further.  Can you please tell us a bit more about yourself – what age you first started and the path ..read more

By Rachel Williams Being robbed of a life full of joy and laughter is a devastating reality for Noah Lindsay and his parents Jane and Geoff. The once active little boy who loved the beach and riding horses is slowly being taken by Niemann-Pick type C (NPC), a fatal degenerative genetic disorder. The symptoms Noah has from NPC fall under the umbrella of more than 70 diseases that are called childhood dementia. It’s a tragic story for the Melbourne family who have been forced to watch their precious son quickly deteriorate – a situation made even worse by being locked down by the city’s COVID re ..read more

By Rachel Williams 21 March is World Down syndrome day. As older parents, Cally and Nigel Ward always knew the risk of having a baby with Down syndrome. But not once did it deter them from creating the baby of their dreams. Their baby, Sarah, is now 12 and is an integral member of the tight-knit family of three. And they would never change her for the world. “When Sarah was born, I was nearly 40 and my husband was 52, so we are very much older parents,” Cally explains. “Having Sarah definitely keeps us young. We joke we will never be headed for the retirement home, as we are still on the schoo ..read more

By Alison Riehs It’s one of those things you think will never happen to you. Until it does. Despite having two other living children, and a history of miscarriages, premature births and high-risk pregnancies, I had never even heard of cytomegalovirus, or CMV as it’s often called, when doctors delivered the crushing news. My daughter was five months old, and we’d spent almost half of her young life in the NICU following her early arrival at just 28 weeks gestation. She had microcephaly, failed her newborn hearing screening, was having difficulty feeding, and had been diagnosed with failure to t ..read more

By Susie Hopkins It’s a heart-breaking reality that as humans we tend to behave in ways that push others away when we need them most. As mums of kids with neurodevelopmental conditions such as ADHD and autism, we see this all too often. Before I learned about autism and how to meet my son’s ever-changing needs, we had so much conflict in our little family. Harry, who’s now 7, was completely out of control as a toddler – biting, scratching and hitting – he was like a wild animal at times. I would never have believed just how much a toddler can hurt others until I went through this. It is when o ..read more

By Lani Knutson If you are a parent of a child with special needs, a disability, or a rare disease, you’ve probably heard the poem Welcome to Holland. By the 10th time someone read it or mentioned it to me, I probably rolled my eyes. I’ve never been much for the schmaltzy and possess a healthy level of cynicism. Plus the poem is a bit dated as our views on disability have changed since the poem was written in 1987. Nevertheless, I’ve been thinking about this poem a lot lately, because it examines an experience I have had many times since our boys were born. In the poem, the arrival of a c ..read more

By Natalie Brobin “You know more than the cardiologist!” My husband, Steve, said this after an appointment with our daughter’s cardiologist. Previously, I had tried to explain to the doctor what I had learned at a recent conference about our daughter’s genetic disorder, Turner syndrome (TS) and how it related her cardiac issues. He didn’t believe me at the time, but when I presented him with the published papers, he did. I was so out of it when we heard about our daughter’s heart condition. We knew within 24 hours that there was “something wrong” with our baby’s heart. In the beginning, I ..read more

By Rachel Williams The emotional impact of being a healthy sibling of a brother or sister with disability can be overwhelming and, in some cases, this impact can be overlooked to the detriment of the family unit. One organisation is helping thousands of affected siblings across the country to find their voices and better articulate their needs. It’s a skill that took Kate Strohm decades to herself establish and now she is committed to sharing her story and skills as Siblings Australia CEO. Kate’s sister, Helen, lived with physical and intellectual disability as a result of her cerebral palsy ..read more

One of the greatest privileges of my work is talking to families from all walks of life and being allowed a glimpse into their world.  One of the things that all of these families have in common is a mother, a step mother, a grandmother or a mother figure who fights like a lioness to protect those children in her care. From the time of conception, a woman is changed forever and irrespective of the journey that she takes from there, her life (possibly her body) and her mind will be permanently affected. Conception is where this bond begins (biologically at least) and as any mother wil ..read more