IDEA Projects

Using information from the IDEA database, current estimates of the prevalence of intellectual disability in WA were just over 2% and for autism a similar 2%. This showed a sharp increase in prevalence of autism since the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme which provides individualized funding for eligible people with a significant and permanent disability.

We investigated the involvement of child protection with children of mothers with intellectual disability. We found that for non-Aboriginal children, the risks of child protection involvement and placement for those born to mothers with ID were 7 times and 12 times higher than those of mothers without ID. The risk was lower for Aboriginal children, at 1.8 and 1.9 times, respectively.

This study investigated child outcomes for mothers with an alcohol-related diagnosis. The likelihood of any negative outcome was about two and a half times that of mothers without a diagnosis. The odds were about 5 times for mothers who received an alcohol-related diagnosis during pregnancy.