APRIL FOOL? No! Instead, think "APRIL FOR AUTISM"

The month of April is dedicated to autism. The key issue about autism is to create awareness and support for those who have autism and their families because it is really a tough thing to handle. For this week, we would be discussing various issues about autism but lets start with the basics

What is Autism?

Autism is a complex disability caused by a brain abnormality which affects the ability of a child to develop communication and social interaction skills.  It is believed to manifest during the first three years and persists for the rest of a person's life. 

Autism, which is also known as, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a wide-spectrum disorder. This means that no two people with autism will have exactly the same symptoms but they generally have difficulty with social and communication skills. People with autism have issues with non-verbal communication, social interactions and activities that include an element of play or joking. This makes them stick to a particular set of behavior and daily activities and would resist any change or attempt to these his daily activities. 

How do you detect Autism?

Autism may easily be mistaken for various disorders. It takes an experienced mind to spot it early.In developing countries where there is little knowledge about autism, this poses a serious challenge. The main challenges of an autistic child include the following problems:

Social skills

An Autistic Child

They may be seen as boring or slow by their peers, they may be slow to catch a joke. Put succinctly, they lack basic playing and talking skills. some of the children are regarded as stubborn, retarded or even "demonic", or posessed. For example, among the Igbo tribe in Nigeria, an autistic person may be referred to as "onye Agwu-ishi", indicating some stigma of being possessed with some stubborn demon which is vaguely understood. However, autistic kids are not mentally retarded nor demonic; they are just kids that have created a world and routine for themselves and they do not want to be taken outside their established routine or comfort zone. They would go to great lengths not to change their routine.

Empathy

 Understanding or being aware of the way others feel. This may make them come across as callous or unemotional. Having a conversation with a person with autism may feel very much like a one-way trip. Sometimes it may feel like you are talking to a brick wall. The person with ASD might give the impression that he is talking at people, rather than with or to them.  

Physical Contact

Many autistic people do not like being touched even if you are trying to play with them and their response may be very dramatic like going into seclusion or curling up like a ball. It takes patience and a little getting used to in order to overcome this. This  may be a real challenge for friends and family and may be quite embarrassing. It may sometimes be overcome if the person is informed before such contact. It is the sudden or startling nature of such contact that is believed to provoke such a reaction.

Loud noises, Lights and some smell:

A person with autism usually finds sudden loud noises unpleasant and quite shocking. It is not necessarily be the actual noise, smell or light, but rather the surprise, and not being able to prepare for it - similar to the response to surprising physical contact. If the person with autism knows something is going to happen, he can cope with it much better. Even knowing that something 'might' happen, and being reminded of it, helps a lot.

Speech

The higher the severity of the condition, the more affected the person's speaking skills. Many children with an ASD do not speak at all but when they speak they may sound much more formal and wordy, compared to other people's speech. Teenagers with Asperger's Syndrome can sometimes sound like young professors. People with autism will often repeat a particular word or phrase they. Like a CD player that is “skipping”.

Repetitive Behavior

Autistic individuals display many forms of repetitive or restricted behavior which may include

·         Stereotyping; is repetitive movement, such as hand flapping, head rolling, or body rocking.

·         Compulsive behavior is intended and appears to follow rules, such as arranging objects in stacks or lines.

·         Sameness is resistance to change; for example, insisting that the furniture not be moved or refusing to be interrupted.

·         Ritualistic behavior involves an unvarying pattern of daily activities, such as an unchanging menu or a dressing ritual. This is closely associated with sameness and an independent validation has suggested combining the two factors.

·         Restricted behavior is limited in focus, interest, or activity, such as preoccupation with a single television program, toy, or game.

·         Self-injury includes movements that injure or can injure the person, such as eye poking, skin picking, hand biting, and head banging.

No single repetitive or self-injurious behavior seems to be specific to autism, but only autism appears to have an elevated pattern of occurrence and severity of these behaviors.

Learning

How quickly a child with autism learns things can be unpredictable. They may learn something much faster than other children, such as how to read long words, only to forget them completely later on. They may learn how to do something the hard way before they learn how to do it the easy way. There are cases where autistic people display exceptional IQ and a geniuses whom excel in a particular field commonly music, maths, science. There are many examples. Take the quiz on the right panel and find out some of them.

What can I do about it?

A LOT!!!
Whatever your talents, capabilities or resources are, there is always a way it can be used to support autism.
1. Get informed. (Educate yourself)
2. Inform others (Create Awareness)
3. Combat stigma and discrimination against autistic people
4. Join an autism group and support families and people with autism
5. Assist in Providing special schools for autistic people 
6. Fund research for the treatment of autism
The List is endless and only limited by your imagination and not your resources.

Sources  for this Article and for more on Autism visit the following links:

Autism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/autism
www.webmd.com/brain/autism
www.guardian.co.uk/society/autism
www.autism.org