Archive for June, 2007
Autism spectrum disorder comprises a combination of traits that result in a range of developmental and behavioural disorders. Autism spectrum disorder is generally classified into two types namely low-functioning autism and high function autism.
An autism spectrum disorder is known to affect the normal development of speech and other social interaction abilities and hence it is called as a pervasive developmental disorder. Autism spectrum disorders are not comparable with disorders like dyslexia and it was seen that many autism spectrum disorder afflicted persons end up in a terrible poverty due to their impaired social interaction level.
Susceptible Areas that can Get Affected
An autism spectrum disorder can cripple the afflicted person in many areas of functioning due to the associated developmental
and psychological disorders. The areas that get affected can include self-help skills, communication, language learning and any academic achievement.
In few individuals, you may notice the symptoms immediately where as in many other cases you may not be able to identify the symptoms and only a prolonged observation alone can make you to identify the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder.
It is also possible for people who have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder to lead a very normal life. In fact, in few cases, people who have been leading a normal life has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at a later part of their lives and they have been living with the disorder without even getting affected by it. The disorder can only be identified or diagnosed with a series of psychological tests.
Not an Incapacitated Person
The first and foremost truth that you should understand and make others also to know is that people afflicted with autism spectrum disorder are not to be considered as disabled people. The only difference is that they have a different thought process from the rest of us. When it comes to the severity of the disorder, there are different degrees or levels and no two persons are alike.
Persons with an autism spectrum disorder might experience slight difficulty in their interaction levels but at the same time they have a very good academic achievement like any other normal person. It all depends on the severity of the disorder.
Persons diagnosed with the disorder may not socialise freely and may even fail in the administered tests in school curriculum. Their reading and comprehension level also may take a beating, as their brains conceive the external stimulus a little bit differently from other normal persons.
Awareness is the Key
By getting to know more about the disorder and be aware of the impairment borne by the afflicted persons, teachers, parents, friends and other people in general can help the affected person in coping with the disorder so as to lead a near normal life.
A good knowledge about the various levels or degrees of the disorder can also help in assisting during the therapies and make the autism afflicted persons feel at home and induce their socialising skills.
By learning more and more about the disorder, we will be in a better position to help the afflicted persons. You can make a difference in the society by helping the people with autism spectrum disorder to live a near normal and a productive life.
Technorati Tags: Autism, Autism Spectrum
Autism is a neurological disorder and is known to affect the individual s language and communications skills. Due to the impairment, autistic people will not be able to socialise freely and also suffer from restricted motor movements for a given set of external stimulus.
Autistic people always tend to retract from the outside world and an autism society can help exactly in this area and make autistic people to lead a near normal life.
Supportive Programmes
An autism society can help both the autistic people and the family members of the autistic people. The help can be in the form of assisting autistic people to socialise better with the society and to lead a near normal life and in the case of family members and friends, the autism society can help in inculcating an awareness and teach them as how to be supportive to the autistic people. The society can also assist people in forming supportive groups for aiding autistic people.
An autism society can also help in devising and executing recreational programmes. Such recreational programmes will assist autistic children and adults to develop skills for better social interaction. Further the programmes are so designed to give fun as well as education to the individuals who are diagnosed with autism.
Holding Summer Camp
An autism society is also known for conducting specialised summer camps or outdoor activities for autistic children. Though many parents have got reservations for sending their autistic children to such camps, you can take the assurance word from here that all the trainers, supervisors, and counselors are all specially trained in dealing with autistic children.
In fact, the autistic children themselves will start loving such camps and return with bubbling energy and confidence and you can rest assured that the supportive camps are indeed beneficial to the autistic children.
When the autistic children are more involved in socialising, they slowly learn to come out of their cocoon and mingle well with the outside world. Many persons who have been diagnosed with autism have shown remarkable improvement and started living normal life after the supportive training and assistance programme. Autism society camps are very useful in facilitating positive attitudes
amongst the autistic children and help them to change in their behaviour.
There is No Single case of Autism
An autism society can lend a helping hand to those who have an autistic child or an individual with autism disorder. Such societies can also assist you to take up care programmes and as well as guide you to know whether you are on the right course in your treating the autistic child.
In the absence of any cure for autism, the nearest autism society can be of a very great help to you in dealing with your autistic child. Besides helping you, the autism society can be instrumental in creating awareness and aid in bringing all the like minded people together.
Technorati Tags: Autism, Autism Society
Till today it is not known who invented the idea of wearing a ribbon to show solidarity in cases of medical problem and for other social causes. But, whoever might have invented it, the gesture is a very great service and support to the society and the entire mankind.
People all over the world were seen wearing many kinds of ribbons on many occasions such as during any outbreak of epidemic, or other health crisis. Wearing of ribbon besides showing that you care, it is also instrumental in promoting an awareness and empathy that becomes a more powerful weapon than any other WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction).
You can recall the latest incidence of ribbon wearing for creating an awareness about AIDS, in which people started wearing red coloured ribbons for making the people to unite together in fighting AIDS, a very serious disease that affects almost al the people irrespective of their religion, nationality and geographical location.
The Autism Ribbon An Exclusive Choice
The autism ribbon is a very befittingly designed ribbon bearing a design of multicoloured puzzles and the reason for incorporating the puzzles is to indicate the mystery attached to the disorder. The medical world even after spending a lot of money and time in research for a possible cure, the cure is still evading them and keeps the researchers puzzled. Autism still continues to puzzle the afflicted as well as the people around the afflicted.
The main purpose of wearing the autism ribbon is to increase the awareness amongst the general public about the disorder and to create a better understanding about the obstacles faced by the afflicted children and the parents alike.
It is a great deal of job and effort for the parents of the autistic children to make their afflicted child self-sufficient both physically and emotionally in this world. Further, many parents feel a great drain in their energy levels and capabilities during their efforts to make their autistic child getting a quality life.
Besides the ribbon wearing option, people also conducted many rallies in an effort to form foundations and establishments for taking care of the autistic people. Autistic people despite being healthy, they are not in a position to take care of themselves and might be pushed to lead a miserable life due to their non-socialising behaviour.
People who wear autism ribbon can be considered as torchbearers for the cause, as the effort has seen formation of awareness campaign as well as raised a big amount of funds. Autism being a neurological disorder, a lot of empathy is needed while dealing with the autistic people and wearing an autism ribbon can definitely show that you care. The small effort of wearing an autism ribbon can have a very big effect and can prompt others to extend support for the cause.
Technorati Tags: Autism, Autism Ribbon
Autism medication is at the eye of a controversy swirl, and, like many of the controversies this also will end in nothing. In fact, it is only an illusion perpetrated to misguide the general public and there are no controversies for autism medications at all.
Effects of Media, Behaviour, Medicine and Children
Treating a child with a behaviour problem is difficult if the treatment involves medications and it will be best understood and experienced by people who have known the controversies about ADHD. Further, it is a pity to know that despite the significant number of criticising reports about the efficiency of these medications, many people still find happiness in putting the blame on the doctors for faking the disorder itself.
Under many circumstance many people have in fact have had the audacity to tell that all these disorders are invented for certain political agenda. How the movement of such political agenda that rests on this faked disorders is to be seen in the coming years and further there are books written by various authors who claim various nonsense items. Though the author themselves do not believe in what they have written, they just publish some rubbish with an intention to make money.
The Detrimental Effects
The negative attitude towards autism medication or other forms of behavioral medication can only result in individuals without any medical background seeking and getting a favourable public opinion. Again, it would be inappropriate to assume things that such type of attitude affects only autism medication. In reality, only people who do not have any basic knowledge about the subject itself propagate most of the false opinions.
How Opinions take Shape
It is better for you to form a opinion about the autism medication only after getting relevant and authentic information from competent people who has got a wide knowledge on the subject and has got many years of successful experience behind them.
Refuse to accept the words of people, whatever may be the level of authenticity, if the person is from a non-core group and doesn t have any exposure or knowledge about autism. The subject of autism medication is by itself a very serious matter and the same should not be taken lightly that too when it relates to the very survival of your beloved child.
Technorati Tags: Autism, Autism Medication
Autism being a neurological disorder is known to affect the various stages of development in an individual. Autistic person conceives the external stimulus differently from that of other normal persons and hence they respond in a different way.
As of now, nobody knows what causes autism in people, and there is no known cure also for autism. However, medical fraternity is very confident that the undergoing autism research can certainly find out a cure in the near future that can eradicate the autism in its totality. So far the research has given us a good treatment schedules for fighting autism disorders.
Existence of Various Hypothesis
The long drawn autism research has given us some hypothesis for better understanding about the possible causes of the disorder. Majority of the researchers opines that genetics play a very vital role in the affliction of autism in children, as they were able to trace back few autism cases in the family tree of the present autistic children. However, there are people who counter this argument or theory with many other possible causes.
Still few other people opine that any brain injury may trigger autism in children. The research on this line has also established the fact that autistic children have lesser number of neurons in an area of the brain called amygdala that control the memory and emotional functions of a person – a lesser number of neurons lead to a poor memory or emotional intelligence. However, the autism research is yet to confirm this theory of brain damage leading
to autism.
Still others put the blame on environmental factors for causing autism in children. Autism research has concretely established that autism doesn’t know any racial or social or ethnic boundaries in its affliction process. Further, there is no proof for the lifestyle or the financial status of a person causing autism disorder in children.
Extending Liberal Assistance
As we are not anywhere near to a cure for autism, the present research has to go a long way deep into our future for getting a definite cure. The scope of the existing autism research must be further extended if at all we want to have an effective cure for autism. The fund required to continue the present level of autism research and to extend it further will be high and a liberal assistance either through public donation or government funding alone can sustain the autism research.
When you make your donation please do it through your local autism society so as to ensure that the money is going to the right place for the right purpose. After all we need to support our scientists and researchers in their endeavour for finding a cure for the autism disorder.
When you see the other angle namely the mind set of people with autism and the family of autistic people, you may be surprised to know that many autistic people would like to live with the disorder and never look for any cure or treatment. They take this opportunity to express their inner strength in fighting the life s odds and want to declare to the world that they are invincible.
Despite the fact of many autistic people not looking for a cure, still autism research can be of much help in educating and creating an awareness in others about the autism disorder. This is because many of the general public still see the weird or eerie behaviour of the autistic people as just crazy behaviour. Finally, are we not socially responsible and supposed to provide a level playing field for the autistic people also the way they deserve it?
Technorati Tags: Autism, Autism Research
The moment you come across the word atypical it will be difficult for you to clearly spell out the correct meaning. In fact, medical world has reserved this particular word to denote to the condition that gives a set of symptoms but doesn t really relate to the assumed medical condition thus leading to hypothetical assumptions. Confused? Yes that is exactly what an atypical autism is.
PDD-NOS
The accepted or the officially announced symptoms of Atypical autism is Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD) or Not Otherwise Specified (NOS) but the symptoms doesn’t ?meet the fullest requirement for any Atypical autism diagnosis. Autism is a neurological disorder and the atypical autism is a subset of PDD ?or NOS. Further, it is difficult to see two people with atypical autism have same symptoms with same level.
There will always be variation in the set of symptoms and the degree of impairment and the common symptoms can be broadly classified into three categories namely social behaviour impairment, language development impairment and creative or imaginative impairment. The occasional fourth symptom could be dysfunctional sensory integration and many atypical autism afflicted person will have the above-mentioned four traits in common however, in various degrees of severity.
Social behaviour impairment denotes normally to the inability of the person to socialise and such person will always be in solitude and seemingly uninterested in making friends. They also respond with irrelevant, or inappropriate or no answer for the questions. ? Persons afflicted by atypical autism show difficulties in understanding non-verbal communications and are normally interested in academic topics rather than talking about other persons.
Creative or Imaginative impairment denotes to poor understanding of sign language and they will insist for clearer literal language. They will be in need of elaborate explaining, as they are very slow in recognising and understanding things. Dysfunction in sensory integration denotes to strange preference to unusual colours and designs of dress materials, failure to correctly recognise sensory information and exhibition of frequent repetitive movements for self-stimulation with improper coordination.
If you can see a person with all the above-mentioned traits or symptoms, then the person might have been afflicted by one of the conditions found on the autistic spectrum. ? However, if the person fail to show other symptoms of autism then you can expect a diagnosis of atypical autism in that person.
What could be the Possible and Effective Treatment
In the case of atypical autism the treatment can be a symptomatic one meaning it is treated symptom by symptom. As there is no specific cure, focussing your treatment to cure the particular symptom can be of great help and improvement.
Some person with atypical autism can be treated with one-on-one therapy continuously for many hours a week, while other persons show marked improvement if treated in a homogenous group. ? The effectiveness of the treatment depends on the in built trust that comes with understanding the condition and hence few persons respond well in solitary treatment and others respond well in a group.
Technorati Tags: Autism, Atypical Autism, PDD
A recent study undertaken to know the prevalence of autism reveals a shocking news that the diagnosed autism cases have increased manifold and has reached six times higher than the position that was prevalent in the early 80s. Today the doctors are more familiarised with the affliction than they were at 20 years back.
In earlier days detecting or diagnosing autism was not easy and majority of the cases were taken as mental retardation rather than the neurological disorders. However, things are changed today and the whole of medical fraternity is aware of this debilitating disorder condition and knows better as how to diagnose and treat autism.
Autism is one of the conditions that have been researched very widely and in depth. Yet, the actual reason that triggers the autism in a person has not been found. The only reasonable finding made in the research is that children are not born with the disorder and they get afflicted or develop the disorder when they are 16 to 18 months old and once afflicted the disorder gain an alarming proportion as the children grow.
The autism makes the child perceive things differently than the actual or the original condition and the autism afflicted child will be different from other normal child in responding to things. And in the process the child start losing his/her ability to communicate or interact efficiently and retracts from the outer world both physically and
emotionally.
No Autism Book that can lend a helping hand to an Autistic
Person
Though the autism condition and the effects are well and extensively documented, there is not even a single autism book that can come to the aid of the autistic children or person. However, if you can assess the situation you can find out the non-responsive nature of the autistic children and adults to the outside world as the reason behind such non-availability of autism book.
It is not likely for an autistic person to take a self-help autism book in their hands and read them so as to follow any of the indicated suggestions. The only behaviour that autism-affected person will tend to do is the regular repetition of few favourable gesticulations or movements and never bothered to do any thing other than what is chosen.
An autism book should in fact be useful and able to guide only people around the autistic people and not the autistic people themselves. More than the real autistic people, only people around these autistic people need training and guidance as how to deal with the autistic people and cope with them.
When your need for an autism book under such category, then there are many autism books that can teach and guide you as how to go about your daily life while dealing with autistic people. Still there are so many areas that may need more clarifications and the researchers are in fact struggling to make all ends meet in their endeavour to bring in a more comprehensive guide or autism book.
Technorati Tags: ? Autism, Autistic Children
Adult autism is slowly becoming a way of life for many elderly people. People with adult autism have to necessarily learn to live with the problem and endure all the associated
inconveniences.
In fact many of people afflicted with adult autism are not bogged down by the condition itself but by the treatment meted out at them by the society in large and such unconcerned behaviour make their life miserable.
Today there is an urgent need for studying and learning about adult autism by everyone, not only by the people who are diagnosed with the disorder, but also by all people for creating a social awareness. By gaining a good knowledge, we
can be of much help to the people with disorders such as adult autism for which there is no cure. After all, are they not our fellow counterparts and deserve all the attention that every one of us is in need of?
Do not Denounce it as a Curse
Despite the inconvenience, many people still doesn t consider adult autism as a curse. In fact, many people enjoy being autistic as they take the condition in their stride and learn to accept the stark truth and to live with it.
Those people also take this opportunity to show their will power in fighting the nature s whip and their capabilities to express their inner strengths in coping with the difficult situation. They expect other people to treat them in a normal way.
People start to get adult autism in a slow process and by the time they recognise the problem they might have lived with the condition for quite some period.
The main difference between a person with an adult autism from that of a normal person is that the adult autism afflicted person s conceive the world little differently, say that heir brains process the information and responds differently despite their all the five senses behaving normally.
Autism is a condition where in the affected person s brain processes and interprets information quite differently from that of any normal person and hence few experts opine that autism can cause certain detrimental effects such as tantrums and fits. People with autism are always anxious and that also will add up to their already weird behaviour.
Weird and Profound Senses
Many people afflicted with adult autism will display a weird or eerie behaviour and will have uncontrollable senses meaning that they will fail to differentiate between hot and cold condition, whether they are feeling hungry or not.
Few autistic people may be highly sensitive to bad odour or a loud noise and they may even dislike or indifferent to affectionate hugs or touches that makes them very unusual in the eyes of other normal people.
People with adult autism find it very difficult to move freely or socialise with general public and such behaviour makes it important to get them taught for participating in social functions and encouraging human contacts.
Besides educating the people with adult autism, it is equally important to teach and train normal people as to how to deal with people with autism and assist them to lead a near normal life. After all each and every one of us deserve equal rights and a just treatment.
