Some Facts about Autism

People with autism suffer from a developmental disability that impairs their abilities and intrinsic behavior. Autism severely degrades a person’s behavior, ability to communicate, social dynamics, and cognitive abilities. In fact, the person’s perceptive power is also affected. This is a condition in which a child is unable to respond to social or environmental conditions.

People with autism tend to interact and view the world in their own way; unfortunately, they usually are not able to share their experiences with others because of the handicap of not being able to express it in a comprehensible manner. Autistic people may experience under- or over-sensitivity to things and sensations such as colors, light, smells, tastes, touch, or sounds. The most common form of autism is ASD or Autism Spectrum Disorder, which covers an entire gamut of conditions categorized as pervasive developmental disorders. One of the more common forms of ASD is Asperger Syndrome. This syndrome tends to affect people of average or above average intelligence and these people view the world in an unconventional way. They have extreme difficulty following or adopting to a society’s accepted behavior and have serious problems communicating or speaking. Because of this, these individuals and their families usually require medical help and support to remedy problematic conditions and behavior.

Impaired social interaction is the primary aspect of ASD. Autistic people usually find it hard to control areas of interest or their activities or have difficulty interacting with peer-groups. Under different circumstances, sufferers show different types of behavior and behave in a variable way. Very young autistic children display no or very little response to stimuli. An ASD-suffering child in early stages of development may seem to develop normally, but little by little, the child will slowly withdraw itself from social interactions. These children tend to avoid eye contact with other people. A lot of ASD-stricken children have the tendency to perform certain repetitive movements, such as head-flipping, head rolling, etc. Some of them have seems to have a difficult time falling asleep and this makes their condition even much worse. These traits severely limit their capacity to focus on social activities such as games, symbols, and languages, which lowers their overall quality of life and impairs their performance.

ASD sufferers have been observed to suffer from co-occurring conditions, including ADD (attention deficit disorder), Tourette syndrome, epileptic seizures, tuberous sclerosis, and Fragile X syndrome (a condition causing mental retardation). By the time they reach adulthood, epilepsy can also be seen in about 20% – 30% of ASD-stricken children. Autistic children have been also known to feel more separated than their non-autistic peers. Autism is indeed a huge problem that hinders the normal development and growth of a person.

According to the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), on average, ASD has been seen in one in every 88 children eight-year old children. Other stats show that boys (1 in 53) are five times more likely to develop ASD (1 in 251) and other forms of autism than girls. These stats may be in fact, even higher since in certain cases, physicians tend to misread the symptoms associated with Asperger syndrome and other forms of autism.

Medical researchers and neurologists still do not know what causes ASD. They are trying to see if there is a genetic connection to the disorder.

Current modes of treatment, although slow to achieve positive changes to conditions and behavior related to autism, have had a great impact on the symptoms of the disorder. These modalities usually integrate multidisciplinary approaches including occupational therapy, social skills therapy, language and speech therapy, structured teaching, developmental models, and ABA (applied behavior analysis). They are all designed to uplift the conditions of the autistic person; unfortunately, these approaches have their own limitations and usually do not achieve the desired outcomes, which is to eradicate the symptoms. Drug treatments are also given to autistic people, but studies show that they have very little effect on the condition. It seems that at this present time there is unfortunately no way of curing and relieving the effects of autism. There have been cures but those are rare occurrences; not all is bad news though, since there have been a few who recovered over the course of time.

Like various modes of healing, alternative treatments such as neuro-feedback therapy, auditory integration, physiotherapy (massage), acupuncture in Saratoga Springs, herbal therapy, diet-based therapy, hypnosis, and animal therapy(a therapy in which autistic people can interact with animals), are known to produce very good positive results, even a complete reversal of autism.