For the record: Work capacity testing. disability, AS

Centrelink called back as promised. As in almost every encounter, the young woman from the call centre was quite lovely, very sympathetic and considerate. But as usual, the administrative chaos was on show. DH told that the reason she had not been registered with a job network member was because she was scheduled for a "Work Capacity Test" first. This was news to DH, as she did not register as having a disability. However, there was some discussion at her interview about carer stress despite her not meeting the criteria for a carer's pension, and it appears that all this somehow got lost in the system.

Note: All this requires an understanding of the complexities of the newly named Autistic Spectrum Disorders, or "Asperger Syndrome". It is a disability of social communication, and is outside the established categories of disability (intellectual, physical, or "psychiatric"). People with AS are not intellectually disabled, do not need constant supervision, in fact are often happiest left alone with their special interests. Nevertheless, they can be socially helpless, require a lot of emotional input, and in some ways can be more demanding on families than other kinds of disabilities. For those who believe every new disability is just a political stunt to get on the victim bandwagon/ luxuriate on the disability pension, (whyever???!!!) AS is not a new disability, just a newly named disability. Eventually many families affected by AS ended up in other kinds of trouble, usually pigeonholed as "mentally ill", people with AS often presented with anxiety and depression due to bullying and lack of understanding of their difficulties, while their families were stigmatised as somehow "causing" their odd behaviour, and with carer stress causing isolation and depression, }