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Government funds early intervention service for autistic children in Auckland

The intake for the programme, run by Autism New Zealand, is being doubled this year.

Autistic children in Auckland can now access the first Government-funded early intervention service designed specifically for them.

Early Steps, run by Autism New Zealand, has begun on a limited roll, but the intake will be doubled later this year.

"The contract with Autism NZ is the first contract specifically around services for children who are developing autism," the Ministry of Education's Director of Learning Support, David Wales, told 1 NEWS.

"That's a reflection of a growing recognition that there is a need to provide that."

Autism New Zealand's National Education Manager Neil Stuart thinks it's "really important".

"One of the things we do is we bring together expertise in autism," he told 1 NEWS.

"That understanding of autism really helps when we consider how best to support these children.

"Sometimes you can look at a child's behaviour, and if you haven't got the understanding of autism, you could see that behaviour looking potentially naughty or things like that, instead of seeing the root cause for it which may be communication."

Three-year-old Jasper Buchanan is one of the 24 kids already using the new service.

His parents, Sara-May and Ross, told 1 NEWS it's been fantastic for them.

"It's helping him build relationships, helping him make friends, helping his family members connect to him," Ms Buchanan says.

Mr Buchanan says before he started in the programme, Jasper was "quite focused" on a narrow set of activities.

"He loved planets and he loved counting and he loved numbers, anything logical with a sequence," he says.

The family say the service has helped Jasper broaden his horizons.

"Our service is based around children playing with the adults who support them in the community, so it may be early childhood teachers or it may be the parents, and it's through the play the children learn all sorts of other things," said Mr Stuart.

Ms Buchanan said among the support they've received, Jasper has been assigned an early intervention specialist, who visits and plays with him regularly at the daycare.

They also have regular planning meetings to set goals for him, fortnightly playdates at Autism New Zealand and playdates with other autistic families.

Autism New Zealand says there's already a waiting list for when their roll increases from 24 to 44 later this year.

"We would like as many parents as possible to experience a service that has play and joy at the centre of everything we do," Mr Stuart says.

The service is currently on a three year contract, with the Ministry of Education set to monitor the progress of the young people involved, to determine the next steps.

Mr Stuart says they hope to replicate the programme in other cities across the country.

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