The topic of autism has been a major hot topic in the news lately, going from episodes of Oprah and also on the evening news. Some communities are even having autism awareness festivities to bring attention to autism.
Why all the hubbub? Autism has been discovered to affect about 1 in every 156 students, depending on which research report you read. This is an incredible statistic and you should be concerned about it. Do you know what the signs of autism are? Do you know what steps you should take if your child has autism?
These are all good questions and they require an answer. First of all, you need to do your homework, do your due diligence, and find out exactly what autism is. Even if your child if affected with autism, it may not be severe enough for you to even notice, but it is something that could grow more pronounced over time, and you need to be prepared to take action and get it diagnosed early enough to make a difference.
One of the problems with autism is that the diagnosis of it is not an exact science. In other words, it is easy to diagnose a broken arm. You can see it, the xrays confirm it, and the doctor or physician knows exactly how to treat it. But on the other hand, autism is not nearly so well defined, and the diagnosis of it often depends on the number of signs of autism that the child represents, and even then can be a subjective call.
One of the primary signs of autism is lack of social interaction. That does not mean that the child is a computer nerd, but that the child clearly has problems, real problems, in social interactions. The verbal speech patterns are also affected, and an unreasonable delay in when your child starts to speak coherent words and phrases could also be a sign of autism. Children with autism have a very difficult time meeting your eyes or looking you in the eyes when you are speaking to them. In the more severe cases of autism, you may see intense concentration on a particular object, even something as simple as a puppet or a ball. This concentration is to the exclusion of all else in the autistic child. Although the signs of autism vary from child to child, it is well known that boys are much more frequently affected by autism than girls, where some studies indicate that the ratio is as high as 4 to 1.
Autism is thought to be a neurological disorder, where the messages coming into the brain in certain areas get scrambled or are not delivered properly. Studies have shown that this is not a hereditary thing, so there is not a need to feel guilty if your natural family tendency is to lean away from social interactions. Yes, you will probably feel guilty if your child is diagnosed with autism, but now is not the time for guilt, now is the time to make plans and arrangements to make things easier for your child and to put them into an environment that will accommodate their affliction.
Do your homework and understand what autism is. If you have reason to suspect that your child has autism, then get them checked out by a trained professional. Like most diseases, early diagnosis will provide your best opportunities to deal with it effectively.
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