Understanding autistic spectrum disorder

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Autism is severely misunderstood and misdiagnosed problem in India and that is why many parents refused to accept that their child is differently able. Autism is a birth disorder and unfortunately we are not able to track this in mother’s womb. Also, when a baby is born it is very difficult for parents to determine that the baby is normal or autistic. So it is the primary responsibility of a pediatrician who is checking the baby on regular basis to note any signs & symptoms and ask parents specific questions regarding the response of baby for particular activity.

The recovery or leading a normal life of an autistic child depends on the timely diagnosis of the issue. The recovery will be totally different in case of a child diagnosed at the age of 10yrs versus a baby diagnosed at 6months of age. At the age of 10yrs his/her brain is already wired for doing activities accordingly where an early diagnosis will let the therapist handle case more accurately. If your baby is showing stereotypic movements (repetitive, head banging, hand waving and nonfunctional motor behavior), verbal repetition, communication gap, lack of emotion or lack of imagination you must consider to see a specialized pediatric neurologist as earliest as possible.

While the therapist is trained to handle any case; the treatment and care require lot of patience and courage from both parents and child. The treatment and medical care depends on the level of autism of the child. When we diagnose a child with autism we also tell the parents on scale of 1-10 as where it stands. There are various therapies involve which help your child to understand.

Applied behavior analysis- in a scientific proven way this therapy help child with verbal, social and communication skills. With various designed and established methods we try to make the child independent in a given skill and also make him/her not dependent on others.

Speech therapy- in many of the cases it is difficult for an autistic child to communicate the way we do. We work with speech therapist on one-to-one basis to make them understand the word we use and how they can communicate in better way.

Occupational therapy- This is the prime and back bone for giving an autistic child a meaning in life. There are many therapies which are designed scientifically to develop the sensory organs of child. I this hand-eye coordination, fine motor training, processing order, oro-pharyngeal stimulation, vestibular stimulation etc are worked.

Every autistic child need customized and personalized care to be part of this society and increase the awareness about his body and surroundings. All the verbal, non-verbal communication are taught to child to help him gel well with the others and make him a part of one of us. There has been many scientific research around autism but unfortunately there no said medicine, surgery or any other intervention which can completely cure this disease. So, does it mean that parents with autistic child are helpless?

Definitely not! There are lot of timely interventions required to find the cause of it and make the life simpler for an autistic child. Also, we need to understand that there are various types of autism and every child can’t be associated with single word. There are possibilities that autism may be fully cured in case of timely interventions and treatment. I am grateful to those parents who are willing to accept that their child are differently able and are ready to make a difference in their life. Every time we do parents counselling and group meetings so that no one feel alone in this world.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/understanding-autistic-spectrum-disorder/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]