Autism... Hmmmnn (Cont)

We are still on the introduction to autism. From the last article, we have been told that autism affects communication, social skill and behaviour; but how exactly? How can we tell that a child has autism? Let’s get into that...

Many parents of children living with autism have said that they started wondering if something was wrong with their child when he/she did not talk on time or maybe the child was even talking initially and lost speech. Delayed speech or loss of speech often times serves as the red flag which points a parent’s attention to the difference between the child and other children his/her age. Basically, people with autism have challenges with verbal or non-verbal communication. It is said that words make only about 7% of communication. Tone and body language are said to make up the rest of the 93%. A child with autism has challenges reading the tone of communication, gesture or facial expressions and even understanding the words spoken to him/her. A person with autism may find it difficult to participate in a conversation, even if he/she has speech. There are other communication challenges. For example, echolalia (repeating what others say) is a common behaviour among children with autism. Also children with autism will rather take a person’s hand to what they want instead of pointing to it. The child may look at a pointed finger or hand and not the object being pointed at. The communication challenges experienced by individuals living with autism have been described as a man being in a strange land, where the people speak a different language. It’s not his fault that he does not understand what the people are saying.
 A person living with autism also has challenges in social interactions. It’s common to find a child with autism staying apart from other children or not playing with the other kids around. They often seem to avoid interaction with others. They are often indifferent or unaware of the people around. A child with autism will most likely avoid eye contact and may not return a smile, when smiled at. Children with autism do not understand social norms or unstated social laws. So a child with autism may not understand the need for personal space by others and so may stand too close to others or approach another person spontaneously. They do not understand turn-taking or the need to share, so a child with autism may not share toys with other children.
People with autism show different odd behaviours. And these behaviours differ for different people on the spectrum, but they are repetitive. Hand flapping, jumping, body rocking or head rolling are common behaviours found in children living with autism. Some children with autism may appear to be obsessed with stacking objects or arranging objects in a line. Many children with autism are resistant to change. They may want to follow a daily routine or a particular dressing ritual. For example, if a child is used to wearing his right shoe first, he may strongly refuse to wear the left first. Some may insist that the furniture be kept where it is or may refuse to stop an activity until they are done with that activity. Also some children with autism may focus on an activity or object of interest, such as a toy, game, a TV program or even a subject of interest. A child may be so interested only in dinosaurs, a particular animal, science, mathematics, literature, music, any possible subject. Other odd behaviours may include toe walking, poor muscle tone, or poor motor planning. A child may show unusual eating behaviours; some are selective in choice of foods, or may refuse to eat. Also some children with autism may be very sensitive to sounds or what they see or may seem insensitive. It’s common to find some children with autism covering their ears as a result of their high sensitivity to sounds. Some children with autism are not afraid of danger and may show high pain threshold. They may also show some injurious behaviours such as hand biting, head banging, eye poking, and skin biting. According to Wikipedia, in 2007, there was a report that injurious behaviour occurred in about 30% of children on the spectrum. Children with autism also have challenges with pretend play or imagination. So the child may not be able to pretend that a doll is a baby or that there’s someone on the other end of the line when given a toy or inactive phone.

In another article, we will discuss the early signs of autism in children. But watch this space for more info on autism... Thank you for reading.

Autism... Hmmmnn

There’s this little boy I know that is 5 years old now. When he was about 2 years old, I noticed that he was not talking, he could care less about other people in the room and he cried a lot whenever there were too many people around him. He just wanted to be on his own. Different people said different things about him; some said he was just a spoilt child, others said he was naughty and needed to be trained to behave himself. Well, having worked with children with special needs, I opened my eyes and began to observe him. I did a mental ticking of d checklist in my mind and this boy just fitted into the typical autism description.

So what is autism? Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder that affects mainly an individual’s social skill, communication and behaviour. It is referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) because there are different variations of the disorder. The term autism is however often used to refer to typical autism while the other variations, such as Asperger’s Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) are differentiated. They are all generally known as Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). There are two other disorders classified under PDD; Rett Syndrome and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder.

Autism is more common in boys with a ratio of 4 boys to 1 girl. It is said that autism is found in 1 child in 88 children in the US and the ratio seems to be reducing as time goes on. Some years ago, I read that globally, there was 1 child on the spectrum found in every 500 and now the ratio has reduced.

 A child with autism would prefer to stay alone. You’ll see him in the classroom away from the other kids. In fact, it most times seems like he is unaware of the other children. There are other ways that show the “impairment” in social skill (I’ll talk more about them in another article). Also, there may be delayed speech or no speech in the child. The child would most likely find it hard to read facial expressions or understand other non-verbal communication like gestures, and even verbal communication. These children display different kinds of odd behaviours such as hand flapping, body rocking, head banging, hand biting, laughing or crying without reason, or arranging toys in a certain way all the time etc.

The way I’ve been saying “child”, someone may think that autism is found only in children. No it is not. Autism continues into adulthood, but then the symptoms are first noticed during childhood (especially within the first three years of the individual). These symptoms can be addressed early through therapy thereby giving the individual a chance to live a “normal” or “almost normal” life. Such that the individual can learn to relate with other people and communicate in a way that suits him/her.

There is no known cause for autism, but everybody seems to agree that it is genetic. It is more likely for a set of identical twins to both have autism than for a set of fraternal twins. One may be on the spectrum and the other may not. Also, sometimes some members of the family may show certain signs that become pronounced in the individual on the spectrum. And a woman with a child on the spectrum has 25% chance of having another child on the spectrum.

I shall continue my autism gist later.....watch this space.