Autism is a spectrum disorder which involves social and communicative deficiency. This deficiency is predominantly affected, children. It also involves repetitive behaviours that make an autistic child clingy to a particular pattern of behaviour as well as deficiency in social interaction and fundamental social schemes.
Children affected by this spectrum are isolated and always alone due to the disorder. They can be termed “introverts”. Some of the children affected by this disorder will not want to maintain meaningful or socially acceptable communicative skills and interaction with their friends and family.
There are five major types of autism and these include; Autistic Disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Rett Syndrome and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (CDD).
Diseases like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or Hyperkinetic Disorder (ADHD), affect the cerebral pulse due to abnormal brain development often before birth or during childbirth. Some organic illnesses have more autism-like symptoms and are called ‘differential diagnoses’.
However, just like every other socially acceptable person is predisposed to having various sorts of illnesses ranging from physical trauma to neuropathological illnesses, autistic patients can also be predisposed to other illnesses.
Although a lack of standardized communicative skills and ways by which autistic patients can request their needs might be difficult to understand, their point of view especially when they are going through certain symptoms or illnesses can relatively be confusing before they can be understood.
Various symptoms enable one to detect autism in a child. Part of these are; a lack of social interaction and communication which might enable a lack of response to names, resistance to cuddling or holding hands, poor eye contact, lack of facial expressions, loss of ability to pronounce earlier learnt words as well as making robot-like speeches, abnormal tone and rhythm, lack of comprehension of simple words to mention a few.
Examples of risk factors considered to be scientifically proven for autism especially when a family has one autistic child is that the family has about 18% possibility of having another autistic child.
In addition, Research shows that the risk is doubled when there are two autistic children in a family. When a girl-child is born in such a family suffering from autism spectrum disorder, the girl-child has about nearly triple the risk of having the disorder herself.
Also, If a mother is above 40 years before childbirth, she is likely to have an autistic child and if the father is above 50 years of age, the child is predisposed to autism.
Meanwhile, If there is an inter-pregnancy interval of fewer than 24 months, it means that if the next conception is less than 24 months after the previous pregnancy, the child is likely to have autistic spectrum disorder.
Unfortunately, social media has not done justice to any news that involves mental health which is why stigmatization is the primary problem when it comes to autism. Autism is the same as every other mental illness.
While some people in society stigmatize and neglect autistic children, others associate fake beliefs with autism, believing that it is the work of the devil. Some even associate autism with a spiritually inflicted illness, for some it is infectious.
As doctors are saddled with the sole responsibility of diagnosing autism in a child, they are mainly equipped with various instruments that can be used to diagnose autism in every child. There are diagnostic criteria ranging from A to E.
Some of the diagnostic criteria for autism include: Persistent deficit in social interaction and communication across multiple contexts; social-emotional reciprocity from abnormal social approach, failure of normal back-and-forth conversation, the deficit in nonverbal communication behaviour used for social interaction, restricted repetitive pattern of behaviour, insistence on sameness inflexibility and many more are just diagnostic tools that are created and have been standardized to help doctors diagnose autism.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) can also help in diagnosing autism.
EEG is a test that measures electrical activity in the brain using small, metal discs (electrodes) attached to the scalp but there is no sufficient evidence to prove that it can be relied upon to diagnose autism.
By this, a multidisciplinary team can be organized to help in the diagnosis of autism. The team will involve a set of specialists who will come together to make a certain diagnosis and treatment for the illness.
The multidisciplinary team for autism involves a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a behavioural scientist, a counsellor, a medical doctor, a social worker, a linguist, a sign language specialist and many other experts working hand in hand to enable them to treat as well as provide support for an autistic child and their parents.
Psychiatrically, it is not believed that drugs can cure mental illnesses like autism spectrum disorder. Childhood illnesses tend to last longer than organic illnesses especially illnesses like autism which affects the fundamental, psychological, and neurophysiological structure of the patient’s brain. But there exists a pharmacological intervention that can successfully be used to manage autism.
Drugs like: HALOPERIDOL can decrease hyperactivity, or withdraw the negativism that is associated with autistic children. Other drugs like RISPERIDONE, ARIPIPRAZOLE and others are approved by the National Food and Drugs Administration Commission (NAFDAC) to treat irritability, self-injurious behaviour, and mood swings in children with autism.
Moreover, autistic children do not respond to anything that involves change because they are used to a certain pattern of behaviour and if a change is introduced to them too quickly, they become disturbed and disoriented which can cause them a lot of discomfort.
In conclusion, parents with autistic children should never stigmatize or neglect them. Though it might seem frustrating and difficult but every parent with autistic children needs to endure their excesses. They should protect them from societal stigmatization, and help them understand the outside world in order to grow up pretty well. It is advisable, If anything early diagnosis and good prognosis will be of greater help to them.
1 Comment
Detailed and educating
Nice one