When Gay von Ess completed her training and started as a preschool teacher in the late 1960s, she felt an instant attraction to the two special needs children in her care.
''I really felt they were more interesting than the mainstream children,'' she said.
She quickly moved into the area of special education and has been helping Canberra families with children with autism and Aspergers syndrome ever since.
Today she receives a Medal of the Order of Australia in the General Division for service to people with autism spectrum disorders and their families, as an advocate and educator.
Ms von Ess has dedicated her professional and personal life to working and volunteering for a number of support groups for parents. She has been an autism consultant and special educator since 2003, an autism intervention unit teacher, and was instrumental in developing communication and social awareness playgroups within ACT Health.
She has also written books on the disorder.
Over her career, Ms von Ess has witnessed an explosion in the rate of autism spectrum disorder diagnoses from about one in 10,000 when she first began working in the field, to one in 100 today.
She attributed the increase to more knowledge about the disorder leading to more diagnoses as well as ''simply more children have the disorder now than in the past''. Ms von Ess said the frustrating part was there was no conclusive evidence as to what triggered autism although genetics and environmental triggers were likely to play a part.
Four decades in the field had forced her to find professional distance and she no longer became too personally attached.
''When I first started I allowed myself to get too involved, but if you get too close, you can't cope and then you can't help anybody.'' She was ''amazed and delighted'' by her honour.
''I am very proud and grateful that it is another way of highlighting autism spectrum disorders to the rest of the community.''
''So many people out there think the milder autistic children are just plain naughty and they will go up to a parent and suggest their child just needs a jolly good slap. Well that is not helpful at all.''
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