Autism is a mental disorder that I experience and explore on a daily basis. There are variety of symptoms and causes, which made it extremely hard to determine if this was truly a factor in my son’s developmental delay. For the first two to three years, no noticeable signs in my son’s behavior or social abilities lead me to believe something was wrong. In the later years, speech delay is what initiated the first visit to neurologist.
Neurologists are one of the health care professionals who use a rating scale that observes and evaluates the child’s language and social behavior between the ages of five and seven. They perform interviews with concern parents who believe their child may have some form of autism. Both the doctor and parents discuss early childhood development buy viewing home videos and photo albums. This helps determine how and when the possible developmental delay began.
Autism, a developmental disability that affects verbal and non-verbal communication and social interaction, generally shows symptoms before age three that adversely affects educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement with repetitive activities, stereotype movements, and resistance to environmental change. This life long disorder interferes with the ability to understand what is hearing, seen and touched. There is a full spectrum of symptom ranging from mild to serve. Some of the more profound problems with social interactions are the most common symptoms of autism. They tend to avoid eye contact and show a disinterest in physical contact such as: resistance to being cuddled, rising of arms, rhythmic rocking, flapping of arms, and crying without tears. Sensory problems are also associated with this mental disorder.
Autistic children may ignore objects or become obsessed with them, continually watching the object or the movement of their fingers over it. Language can be another obstacle, some children may not speak at all, and however those that do often speak in single word and may endlessly repeat words or phrases. Contrary to popular belief, many children with autism pose very little of the most serve symptoms. They show affection, smile, laugh, and demonstrate a variety of emotions. Like many other children they respond to their environment in both positive and negative ways. Autism may affect the child’s range of responses and make it somewhat difficult to control body movement and the way their minds react. But every child with autism is an individual and all have a unique personality and combination of characteristics. Their abilities fluctuate from day to day depending on the amount of anxiety and processing of information. They may learn one day and not the next. Also they may have extraordinary abilities in one or more areas. Such children are known as idiot savants and are considered to be geniuses.
There are alternative treatments and effective approaches to help children with autism to reach their fullest potential. Due to the fact, there are no single medications yet proven highly effective, there are various educational resources, vitamins, enrich drugs, and exercises available.
While the prognosis is not clear because there is no cure, many children can eventually become more responsive as they learn to understand the world around them. Prevention is not possible until the cause of autism is discovered.
There are several litigations currently in process involving the ever so popular vaccine (MMR). Thimerosal was used as a preservative in this vaccine to prevent bacteria and fungal contamination. Thimerosal contains mercury, a toxic metal that can cause sensory, immune, neurological, motor and behavioral dysfunctions, including autism. Autism now is the 3rd most common child developmental disorder. The link between thimersal and autism are currently the subject of researchers.
Although my son has been diagnosis as not having classical autism, he exhibits signs and is considered to have clinical features of autism. Overall my son and I have our good and bad days. Unfortunately, we don’t communicate verbally, but truly understand each other. This learning disability can be quite emotional in both the parent and child’s life, but I will continue my quest in providing the very best environment and treatment for my son’s development.
