Autism centres closing

Australia’s AEIOU autism centres have shut nationwide, cutting off therapy and daycare for children who had been receiving both in one place. (abc.net.au) The AEIOU Foundation operated 11 centres across Queensland, Adelaide and Canberra before all sites closed with immediate effect after liquidators were appointed on March 11, 2026. The liquidators said bookings, appointments and enrolments from March 12 onward were cancelled. (aeiou.org.au) Families told ABC the closures came with little warning. Brisbane father Eric Moore said his five-year-old son Dimitri, who has level 3 autism, had shown a “massive deterioration” in behaviour after losing access to behavioural therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and day care. (abc.net.au) AEIOU had already begun shrinking in 2025. On June 17, 2025, the foundation said it would close its Gold Coast centre and wind back integrated childcare and supported learning at Bundaberg, Nathan and Sippy Downs while keeping one-to-one therapy in those locations. (aeiou.org.au) The service model mattered because AEIOU combined early childhood education, long daycare and multiple therapies under one roof for preschool-aged children with autism. Parents said that setup let them keep working while their children received intensive support during the day. (abc.net.au) The funding dispute sits inside a much larger overhaul of Australia’s disability system. Health Minister Mark Butler said on April 22 that the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which now supports about 760,000 people and costs more than $50 billion a year, would be tightened to reduce participation to 600,000 by the end of the decade. (abc.net.au) AEIOU’s former leadership blamed “significant changes in the funding environment” as well as rising costs and workforce pressures. Disability advocates told ABC in March that providers were finding it “virtually impossible” to run sustainable services within the National Disability Insurance Scheme. (aeiou.org.au) (abc.net.au) The government says the scheme needs tighter rules because costs were heading higher. Butler said eligibility would shift toward functional assessments rather than diagnosis alone, and he said states and territories would be expected to provide local supports for people kept out of the scheme. (abc.net.au) Autism is central to the pressure on the scheme: ABC reported that children with autism or developmental delay make up almost half of National Disability Insurance Scheme participants. That has turned the AEIOU collapse into a test of whether specialist services can survive while Canberra tries to slow spending growth. (abc.net.au) For families who lost AEIOU overnight, the immediate problem is not the policy debate in Canberra but finding replacement care, therapy and supervision for children whose routines were built around those centres. The liquidators told parents to seek alternate services and said National Disability Insurance Agency contacts would reach affected participants. (abc.net.au) (aeiou.org.au)