Autism is considered as a neurological disorder than can cause impairment in communication abilities, social interaction and varied patterns of behaviour and in areas of interest in people.
The word autism originated from the Greek word meaning “self” and as of today the exact cause for autism is not known. However, few researchers and medical experts have found striking similarities in certain genes in people who are autistic. Only a series of general and psychiatric tests alone can find out whether the person is suffering from autism or not.
Living Happily with Autism
Autistic people exhibit classic symptoms of impairment in social interaction and are slow in language learning. In the recent past autism cases have shown an increasing trend and nobody was able to find out the exact reasons for occurrence of autism.
It may be a surprising news to you if you know that autistic people are in fact happy about their condition and take this opportunity to exhibit their courage and conviction to fight the condition so as to lead a near normal life.
There are treatments that can cure autism and it was established that many of the autistic children could have better communication abilities with proper training and intense tailor made therapies. In fact autistic children can be made to lead a near normal life and socialise freely with others through proper schooling and other related treatments.
The stark truth is that autism doesn’t have any cure and once afflicted, only management practices alone can make life better. Many adults and children who have been affected by autism have taken their autistic condition in their strides and are leading a normal life.
Studying the Symptoms of Autism
The symptoms of autism can easily be observed in the childhood stage itself. Children afflicted by autism will not socialise and interact freely and avoid eye contact. You can easily find out the difference in behaviour of an autistic child from that of normal child not afflicted by autism.
Children with autism always prefer to be in solitude and will be very indifferent to caring gestures such as hugging, etc. Few children afflicted by autism may even prefer to be alone and never be in need of any attention at all.
Once the children afflicted by autism grow old, they draw themselves away from the general public, including their beloved parents.
Though one theory suggests that autistic children are emotionally attached to their parents, another school of thought say that it is not so and autistic children never exhibit their attachment to their parents. It will be a heart-breaking situation for many of the parents who have autistic children as their children constantly distant themselves from them.
In many situations, autistic children will show uncontrolled behaviour and such acts are exhibited in the form of yelling or crying. Few even go to an extent of kicking at the imaginary friends or objects and the children growing with autism show aggressive behaviour such as self-injury or withdrawing from the surrounding situations in their adulthood.
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With an additional 25,000 new cases of autism getting reported every year, the number of autism affected children is also increasing and a study says that 1 in every 150 children is affected by autism.
Further, autism while affecting children, doesn’t restrict with any particular ethnic group and is known to affect all people from all walks of life. Today due to increase in the autism cases, there is an urgent need for autism awareness also for better management of autism affects children and grown-ups.
Persons affected by autism will have impaired speech and other social interaction and might behave abnormally or might show inappropriate responses. In case of severity many persons will have severe impairment in their speech and will not be able to take care of themselves.
For the purpose of inculcating autism awareness amongst the general public the National Autism Society in the year 1972 declared the month of April every year as National Autism Awareness month.
Diagnosing Autism in its Early Stage
Efforts to increase autism awareness make pediatricians and the parents alike in understanding or finding the otherwise elusive symptoms in small children. During the month of April every year, there will be television shows and information in magazines about autism news and the matter will be discussed thread bare to inculcate a better understanding of symptoms of autism in children.
One can find the earlier symptoms of autism even in an age of three and hence it is very difficult to diagnose the symptoms of autism, as almost all the symptoms are of behavioural in nature. Further, autism being considered as a spectrum disorder, the symptoms also vary in the scale of severity and with other people.
What could be done towards Treating Autism
Best results can be achieved if the autism is diagnosed earlier and treatments are started without any delay. Autism awareness plays a very vital role in early diagnosis and helps people and family members to coordinate in treatment schedules and for better understanding the cause and effect of autism. Spread of the awareness can also help the society at large in devising meaningful and helpful communities for dealing with autism.
The interests or the behaviour meted out by the society or the community towards the autism-affected persons also plays an effective role during the treatment. Persons who come under high spectrum autism, despite their efficiency in doing all the schoolwork, get bullied due to their odd behaviour.
Increasing autism awareness can make such situation less burdensome for the autistic persons as the persons around them understand about the situation and help and take the strange behaviours as normal.
Sorting out the Issues
Any increase in autism awareness will certainly broaden the scope for studying or including all the related issues. An autism-affected person will exhibit various disorders covering the entire body and are prone to many other related problems.
Besides the conspicuous impairment in speech and other behavioural maladies, researches are being conducted to study the issues relating to dietary habits, role of any toxic materials like mercury, and other environmental issues so as to understand better about autism. Only a better autism awareness can bring in a better support and in understanding autism to its fullest possible level.
There are many agencies other than the National Autism Society that help in inculcating autism awareness among the general public. One such agency is the Center for Disease Control, Department of Education, and it should be your endeavour to increase your knowledge base about autism and create greater autism awareness.
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Autism is caused due to neurological disorders and can affect language and social development in a person. The severity and the symptoms of autism vary widely and hence it is considered as a broad-spectrum disorder.
A person affected with a low degree autism can never live his/her life in full and independently and where as the high degree autism affected person is at the other end of spectrum meaning that the person will be normal and some times superior also. One example for the high spectrum autism is the classic aspergers autism.
What you mean by Aspergers autism
Many researchers opine that aspergers autism is different form the regular autism disorder, but few people argue that it is the same autism occurring in higher degree or a high functioning one. One can have a clear idea about the aspergers autism from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders where it has been clearly spelled out as follows:
1. Absence of qualitative interaction in any social environment.
2. Occurrence of stereotype, repetitive and restricted behaviours and interests.
3. Conspicuous and noticeable defects in major areas of day-to-day functioning.
4. There will not be any noticeable delay in language development.
5. Other than the social interaction area, there will not be any noticeable delay in psychological development, adaptive skills or behaviour and self-help skills.
6. The symptoms resemble very much to the cases of schizophrenia or pervasive developmental disorder.
In autism, though the psychological development, self-help skills and adaptive behaviour seems to be normal the other behaviours such as social development or adaptability, language skills and creative skills take a beating and are very conspicuously absent or different from other normal individuals.
Academic Speech
The majority of the speech by people suffering from Aspergers autism will always centre on various intellect aspects and can never be about the people or surroundings. Persons affected by aspergers autism communicate for the main purpose of sharing the knowledge and they always tend to sound that of a teaching professor and the merit of identifying this particular behaviour in 1944 should go to Dr. Hans Asperger.
Many of the Dr. Hans Asperger’s findings and studies were not made public due the reason of World War II going over at that time. His widely researched studies were also not translated and made public in the last 50 years. He was the first person to tell the world that many adults with Aspergers autism were never diagnosed when they were children.
Medical Condition - both Physical and Psychological
There is no record to prove that Aspergers autism can reduce the patient’s life but the autism can set in psychological conditions such depression, mood disorders, and the popular OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).
Persons afflicted by autism will display impairment in socialising and this can cause an anxious and debilitating situations that are very difficult to manage and tolerate.
However, the eagerness to learn any new things and intense concentration power displayed by autism affected persons were found to be very useful in persons who have a high IQ level. Persons with Aspergers autism can excel in all fields such as science, music and mathematics barring only a situation where social interaction is involved. Persons affected by Aspergers autism are absent minded and never like socialising.
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Autism is a neurological disorder resulting in impairment of speech and other social interaction behaviour and it generally affects children in the age group of less than three years. For long the autism disorder evaded the various researches undertaken to know the exact cause.
The only known factor is that autistic people tend to react in a different manner to the external stimulus due to the reason that they process and interpret information differently from that of any normal person. Despite many numbers of diagnosed autism cases, as of today there is no autism cure.
Learning and Liking to Live Without a Cure
It is an interesting fact to know that many people who have been diagnosed with autism have expressed their desire to live with the disorder and never looked for an autism cure. Many people afflicted with autism have taken the disorder in their stride and started to live their lives the way nature has given to them.
They also consider that living in a autistic condition is in fact a blessing showered on them for the reason that they know how to fight the odds in life and come out successful.
Autism afflicts different people in different ways meaning that there are no two autistic people with the same behavioural symptoms. However, with prolonged and intensive therapies, many autistic people have started living a near normal life without the debilitating autistic disorders.
Only few people seek for an autism cure when they find living with the disorder difficult or in other words only people who are unable to live with the disorders turn to seek for an autism cure.
Autistic people fail to keep a normal or cordial relationship with the outside world and normally like to be in solitude always. They will also be indifferent and sometimes shun away from affectionate behaviours such as touching or hugging and they also show undesirable or inappropriate reactions to certain external stimulus.
They also exhibit uncontrolled scream or tantrums when their regular routine is disturbed or altered. In many cases, autistic people cannot stand loud noises and very bad odours. Almost all the autistic people react or respond differently for any given stimulus or occasions. Hence, it is important for you to involve the autistic people in activities that encourage social interaction so that they can be made to live normally.
Awareness is the Key to make Situation Better
In the absence of any autism cure, the only available method is to understand the autistic people and make their life better by constantly engaging them in social interactions. It is a pity to see that many people taking the weird or eerie behaviour of the autistic people as just “crazy” and even start advising to behave properly. Only here comes the role of awareness or education that can make general public to see autistic person as a yet another general person and accept the way they are.
Though there is no doubt that one day researchers will come out with an autism cure, till such time people can be made to be aware of this disorder and can be made to contribute liberally for the cause.
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Studies have established that an early diagnosis of autism in children can help in starting treatments early and the chances of bringing the children form their personal fantasy world to the real world will be bright. If the autism diagnosis in done on the children before they reach three years of age, then the results of treatments will be very promising.
Impact of treatment on the Age of Autism Diagnosis
As of today medical world is yet to give us a cure for autism. However, a specialised, intensive and a prolonged treatment can make the autistic child to respond and show improvement in their communication level and in social interaction behaviour. Though the process of recovery is slow and may cost little more in financial terms, it will be a sustainable one that makes worth the effort and the money spent.
In few cases, the treatment may involve separation of the child from the parents for a longer period so as make it convenient for the treating specialists to observe the autistic child’s behaviour in detail and document for proper follow-up. Unfortunately, each and every autistic child has to undergo autism diagnosis, and in each case the treatment will be different and has to be specifically made to suit to the child’s level of disorder.
The Subtle Difference between an Autistic Child and a Genius Child
You may come across many incidents where in autistic children excelling in many areas of study without even proper guidance. Many of the autistic children do not even take books in their hands but show very keen interests in learning things.
For example autistic children take very less time in mastering the operation of a computer and this can well be compared to the popular saying “ducklings to the water”, meaning that ducklings start swimming the moment they enter into water for the first time.
Autistic children also exhibit a very great affinity to numbers and they love to solve mathematical problems with ease. Further, they also show keen interests in literary field and may even create few masterpieces.
You can take consolation in the fact that autism diagnosis need not necessarily be considered as a sign for “mental retardness”. Autism is in fact a neurological disorder that results in impairment of social interaction and the child retracts from the outside world.
The condition makes the autistic children refuse to take interest or study. Though they have the capacity to read and understand, the impairment just keeps them separated from other normal activities.
After autism diagnosis, modern therapies aim at identifying the areas of interest in the autistic child and utilise such areas of interests to make a bridge to other favourable behavioural changes in a slow and steady manner.
The catch is in finding the exact interest of the autistic child and this may take even months together and is posing a challenge to the doctors. Identifying the interests of an autistic child may be very arduous and time consuming and once exact interests are identified, the satisfaction knows no bounds. Then the identified interests can effectively be made use for treating the autistic child and bring him/her to the real world.
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When it comes to the disorders of neurological category, then in this vast expanse of world there are only three category of people namely medical professionals, the afflicted and the relatives of the afflicted; all the rest of the people come under the ignorant category.
Most of the general public still remain ignorant and uninterested about this type of disease or condition related to behavioural impairment.
Due to the indifference implicitly shown by the general public towards the autism is assuming significant proportions and hence the condition of autism started receiving insignificant understanding.
The Bias and Autism Behavior
The main reason for general public to misunderstand autism behavior lies in their disbelief regarding the very existence of any such disease or condition. The prejudiced thought or belief make them to take the impairment as crazy and they fail or rather refuse to take into account the possibility of existence of such neurological disorder.
The popular belief or rather disbelief makes people to just brush off any symptoms of neurological disorders as “crazy behaviour” and even make them to suggest ways and means to mend the behaviour.
Most of the autism symptoms exhibited by children are in fact looked down as irresponsible acts of escapism and in misunderstanding the symptoms parents are in no way different from the general public.
In earlier days when people find behavioural changes or any malady in social interaction among their child, then they will be subjected to punishments such as locking them in cages or making them to stand in hot sun or cold rain. They believed that such punishments could correct the intentional and the forced behaviour problems of the child.
The situation even made the federal government to bring in a law to desist parents and general public from inciting such punishments on their wards or younger children. In those days the so-called therapy for autism behavior normally comprises of torture related treatments and methods for correcting the behavioural patterns.
Harmless Impairment
Most of the autism behaviors assume a social awkwardness form where as the true social awkwardness is the real absence or lack of a specific social skill. The key factor of an autism behavior is that it is looked at as a voluntary behaviour rather than an involuntary response. The actual autism behavior is in fact a mental condition and should never be treated as lack of social skills.
Knowing more about autism behavior and autism behavioural therapy are not easy and the issues are to be discussed in length to get a better understanding so as to know well the domain of the above-mentioned three groups.
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Many numbers of children get afflicted by autism through out the world without any respite and today the number of afflicted people is six times more than the figure that were available in early 80s.
Scientists or researchers are not sure why there is an increasing trend in autism affliction among children, but the consoling news could be that many people have started learning as how to manage the disorder and to live with the condition.
Understanding Autism
Autism is a neurological disorder that afflicts younger children well before their age of three years. If not diagnosed and appropriate treatment is not given the disorder will result in impairment of the child’s social skills and communication abilities.
Autistic children retract from the outside world and start living in solitude and finally may reach a stage where in you may not be able to bring them to the real world at all.
When it comes to autism, there are two types and they are mild autism and the complex autism. Both the types were studied in great detail but the research is yet to give us a perfect cure for autism disorder.
However, the researches and studies have made us to understand autism better and given us various treatment methods and therapies for management of autism. In fact, many of such therapies have resulted in containing the effects of disorder and in few cases it has even reversed the condition to normal.
It will be a difficult task to diagnose mild autism in children and if the condition is left untreated, then the disorder may develop into a fully blown complex autistic disorder. On the other hand is easy to treat mild autism if diagnosed well in time and you can gift the child who has mild autism back its original normal life once again.
Learning to Understand Various Symptoms of Autism
Today’s scientific diagnostic tools have made us to understand the otherwise peculiar or erratic symptoms of autism easier. The only catch is that you can do it only when the children reach a stage where you can make them to communicate and for any given normal circumstances you will be able to diagnose when the children are in their 13 to 18 months old in age. Let us now see few of the conspicuous symptoms that manifest in both mild autism and complex autism:
Afflicted child will be indifferent to pain or shows no external reactions
Absence of smiling or laughter and the child will not express any happy disposition
Absence of any reaction to your scolding or appreciation or even to physical punishments such as slapping, etc
Avoid or indifferent to physical contacts and comforting gestures such as touching and hugging
Show great affinity to numbers and are even adept in solving mathematical problems; and interested in repetitive movements
Affinity towards spinning motion
Exhibit intolerance to loud noises
Impaired communications abilities
Likes games that are very monotonous to other normal children
Shows great interests towards unusual objects
Often retracts from outer world and get into solitude
All the above-mentioned traits are seen both in mild autism and complex autism. Majority of the symptoms varies in degree from person to person and can never be the same for any two afflicted persons.
In complex autism, the symptoms will be more conspicuous than in mild autism. However, the therapies or the treatment methods would be the same in both the cases. One need enormous care and patience in treating autistic children and the results will not be forthcoming in a short time.
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The moment you know that your child is having autism, then a gloom will descend over you and you will start wondering what to do. The big list of vague symptoms will further confuse you as you may find few of them exhibited by your child and many of them are not at all displayed. Such a situation can also make you to suspect some other related disorder and you may even start praying for absence of autism in your child.
Autism is considered as a spectrum disorder meaning that your child may or may not have all the related symptoms and the behavioural traits also seems to be very unique. Based on the symptoms your child may be in need of treatment in specific areas only and you can safely leave other symptoms untreated
Choosing an autism treatment itself is a big job and the very success mainly depends on your choosing the correct and apt treatment for your child based on the symptoms exhibited. There is no one single treatment schedule that can accommodate all autistic children irrespective of the symptoms.
Therapies for Behavioural Disorder
Your child may exhibit behavioural maladies either due to the impaired communication skills, or due to malfunctioning sensory capabilities, or even both. While deciding the autism treatment for management of behavioural maladies caused by impairment, care should be taken to make an assessment based on the individual case basis.
Autistic children do not learn corrective behaviours on their own and hence it is a must for you to choose an appropriate behavioural therapy based on your child’s symptoms.
Few children may be in need of one-to-one training and the same should get administered through an expert teacher. An expert in administering such therapies will be able to show good progress in your child’s learning curve.
The autism treatment is aimed at making the child to learn within an environment rather than making to adjust to the environment. Hence, any autism treatment taken up for treating behavioural maladies should be tailor made for correctly addressing the specific behavior of each child.
Therapies for Physical Coordination
Autistic children have impaired learning abilities and hence may need specialised treatment for correcting the learning disorder. You can find communication disorder in almost all the autism spectrums and this can be well addressed through speech therapy. In an autism treatment, physical therapies are also made use for correcting the impaired motor abilities and such treatment can improve physical coordination in the autistic child.
The difficulty faced by the autistic children is mainly due to their misunderstanding the external stimulus and their brain “sees” things differently. The occupational therapy in an autism treatment can help in integrating all the messages for proper coordination.
Therapies Involving Medications
Under normal circumstances medications are not prescribed in an autism treatment, but in few exceptional cases medicines are used for correcting and diverting certain of the body and brain chemical compositions.
Some autistic children, who have difficulties in behavioural patterns and find it difficult to socialise freely, are prescribed with anti-depressants like Prozac, Celexa, or Zoloft. For children who are aggressive and suffer from tantrums, anti-psychotic medications can help in decreasing such incidence effectively.
Only after knowing and understanding your child’s symptoms fully, you should choose the autism treatment for your child. Note to take adequate precautions while selecting the autism treatment as the treatment is the only available lifeline for your child.
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Teaching a child with autism is a very formidable task when you take into account the abnormal symptoms of autism. The behaviour pattern of autistic persons are always different and they differ from person to person and due to which you cannot just apply one single treatment commonly for all autistic persons.
The main symptoms or the behaviour of autistic persons will be that they will be very sensitive to loud noise, show interests in unusual topics and get fascinated towards relatively inconspicuous movements such as finger movement of others.
It has been proved beyond doubt that an early treatment schedule can in fact assist autistic children regain their lost attributes and help them to lead a near normal life. As the symptoms of autism can never be the same, the treatment methods also can never be same.
Due to the uniqueness of autism there is no standard or standardised treatment method that can be applied on autistic people. When it comes to types of treatment, there are three methods of teaching a child with autism and they are physical therapy, verbal communication therapy, and applied behavioural analysis.
Physical Therapy
Teaching a child with autism is a demanding job due to the complexity involved in making the autistic child understanding the techniques and in making them to follow. The main aim is to make the autistic children learn to live within the environment instead of changing the entire behaviour.
One more barrier that one could face in educating the autistic children is in the area of making them to overcome their physical difficulties experienced. As majority of the autistic children will have malfunctioning motor abilities in one way or other, physical therapy sessions should be so designed so as to assist the child to get back their coordination skills and better physical movement.
Verbal Communication Therapy
The verbal communication technique used in teaching a child with autism is to instill confidence in the autistic child’s mind for better communication. Normally any autistic child will have great difficulty in communication and hence they fall silent and never express their desires or their thoughts.
Technicians teaching verbal communication techniques use novel methods so as to evince interests in the minds of the autistic children and kindle their awareness and tongue usage. Children learn to use the movements of tongue towards understanding the meaning of a word and start using the technique for putting forth their thoughts.
Applied Behaviour Analysis
The third method that is used in teaching a child with autism is applied behavioural analysis. This particular educational technique was evolved based on the foundation that autism is a neurological disorder. The technique aims in customisation of instruction sets based on the case by case analysis as the autism disorder symptoms are unique and are not similar for any two persons.
This customised or individualised technique helps the autistic child to accomplish the task accurately and they will be in a position to repeat with accuracy and start enjoying the rewards. This technique will instill a positive outlook in the minds of the autistic children and help them to overcome their communication disability.
Teaching a child with autism by resorting to applied behavioural analysis has resulted in success and the autistic children have started to show their flexibility in the place of rigidity and friendliness in the place of perpetual hostility.
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Autism is a neurological disorder that results in impairment of social skills and changed patterns of behaviour and interests in a person. The word ‘autism’ has its origin from a Greek word meaning “self”.
As of now there is no cure for autism and the medical world is also not likely to find one in the near future. Further, the cause of autism is also yet to be cracked by the researchers. Despite the various thoughts and beliefs, scientists and researchers commonly agree on the genetic reason as the cause of autism.
With the research getting much deeper as days rolling by, scientists still debate on genetics as a possible angle for cause of autism in people. The reason for putting the blame on genetics for the possible cause of autism is due to the finding that identical twins who share the same DNA also shares the disorder more than the non-identical twins.
Though the scientists have pinpointed the role of genes for the possible cause of autism, they have not yet concluded whether it is a single gene or a collection of genes.
Is it Acquired or Inherited
Again there are two school of thoughts, one claiming the cause of autism due to inheritance and the other arguing on that the presence of particular set of gene or genes in an autistic person as a coincidence.
Few other experts and specialists argue that environmental factors can also be a cause of autism and as days roll by it is becoming difficult to zero-in on the cause of autism and all the findings are becoming only hypothetical.
Other Possible Presumption
When it comes to the cause of autism, there are more theories but not even a single theory has been proved beyond doubt. Few strange theories such as yeast infections, leaky gut syndrome, allergic or intolerance to certain specific food items, lack of beneficial digestive bacteria - all these theories also make their rounds.
Under the weird theory of leaky gut syndrome, people assume that the undigested food components enter into the blood stream and eventually enter into the brain resulting autistic condition.
Many people opine that such yeast infection or other materials cause immunodeficiency problems that may start mimicking neurotransmitters and scrambles the inward stimulus making the autistic person to misinterpret things.
Actually under this circumstance the person may be showing a right response for a wrong stimulus or impulse. Few other opinions suggest that a brain injury, or administered vaccines, or few viruses, or even the environmental factors may trigger autism in people.
The stark truth is that nobody is aware of the real cause of autism as of now and autism continues its journey of affliction without any hindrance. Though there is no cure for autism, still people afflicted with autism can lead a meaningful and productive life with a right kind of treatment.
Let us hope that one day we will know the exact cause of autism and the precise cure for autism. Until then, we can learn to be more aware of the disorder and help autistic people in all possible ways for making their life easier.
Technorati Tags: Autism, Autism Spectrum, ADHD
