"Doctor, my child is three years old and can't talk, doesn't like to play with others, has a stubborn and difficult personality, will he get autism?" 」 My kids are smart, learn things quickly, and have no problems except not being able to talk."
"Is there no hope for a child diagnosed with autism..."
Is autism really untreatable? What kind of disease is autism? With many questions from parents, let's walk into autism.
Autism (autism spectrum disorder) – refers to a disorder with generalized developmental disorders. Diseases in which social impairment (social communication and social communication disorders) are the core, accompanied by narrow interests, stereotyped repetitive behaviors, and perceptual abnormalities, resulting in impaired patient function and seriously affecting their social functioning activities.
Is there a definite cause of autism?
For many years, the exact causes of autism have been controversial topics, from the psychiatric theory in the early stages of autism disease research, the refrigerator mother theory (acquired theory), to the current genetic genetics and multiple environmental influences as the direction of etiology. Although medical, educational, psychological and other multidisciplinary experts have never stopped studying the causes of the disease, the exact factors of autism have not yet been found.
What are the manifestations of the innate disorders of autism? The following is to see the difference between them and ordinary people through the following aspects
1. Social interaction disorders
The behavior of autism in infancy is mainly "not listening, not seeing, not pointing, not shouldn't, not following" - it is the early screening period for autism. Young children will not have obvious abnormal behavior during this period, but there will be common concerns or a lack of early social behavior.
Children with autism in early childhood have a lack of social desire and low attention to other people's things. Specifically, there is no need to express no communication ability, no observation, follow and imitation ability, unfamiliar environment does not listen to instructions and is not afraid of danger, and family reactions are difficult to raise.
Social behavior disorder in school-age children with autism has become more prominent, most of them go their own way, can not follow the routine, difficult to adapt to group activities, and can not participate in understanding rotation, waiting, cooperation, exchange, competition and other interactive group games. Social adaptability disorder is particularly pronounced during childhood interactions with others, and even children with better developmental function have difficulty maintaining social friendships.
2. Language communication disorders
Most children with autism have problems with language developmental disorders. Such as no verbal expression or less vocabulary expression, self-talk without communication meaning of language (advertising words, parrot tongue, etc.), speakable but communication is too simple, even if you can talk to others, you can master a good interactive communication language. At the same time, there may be abnormal speech and intonation disorders.
3. The development of stereotyped repetitive behaviors and narrow interests
The vast majority of children with autism have varying degrees of stereotyped repetitive behavior. It is manifested in stereotyped memory, a single limited way of playing, paying attention to the part of the object, and accompanied by repetitive behaviors such as running and jumping, spinning in circles, and laughing that are difficult to control. Such as liking light and shadow, repeatedly manipulating objects to arrange and classify them, liking to rotate circular objects, watching the same video and rapping advertising words repeatedly, repeating routes, and repeatedly going up and down stairs or elevators. Some children can retain their "uniqueness" in learning, and they have a single interest in words, numbers, patterns and letters. Such children seem to be "smart, diligent and inquisitive", but in fact they are rigid and stubborn, repeating and continuing to ask questions, and are extremely resistant to the realization of things that others ask for change. Although some children with autism retain a talent for memory and computing, there are major barriers to learning social and survival skills.
4. Abnormal perception
Children with autism respond essentially differently to sensory stimuli in normal environments, usually manifesting as oversensitivity or a small part of the response. It is roughly the pursuit of visual stimulation, abnormal tactile needs, sensitive hearing, dull pain, abnormal proprioception, etc. This is also the root cause behind many of the behavioral problems of autism.
Do people with autism have other comorbidities besides their own diseases? Let's talk about the comorbidities that we have to know about —
A significant proportion of patients with ASD were found to be accompanied by multiple comorbidities in addition to the manifestations of the core disorder. Such as comorbid ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), intellectual disability, language impairment and learning disabilities...
Some people with autism can be accompanied by psychological diseases such as anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorders of different degrees, and can be accompanied by medical diseases such as epilepsy, genetic diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, and sleep disorders.
The body dysfunction caused by many of the above comorbidities seriously affects the learning and social life of children or adults with ASD. Illness in rehabilitation work has also become a problem that cannot be ignored.
What can be done to effectively improve autism symptoms?
After long-term treatment case observation, intensive scientific educational interventions can become increasingly effective in helping children with ASD improve their symptoms of dysfunction and enable them to acquire more socialized functions.
As a parent with autism, this can help the child more effectively
1. Correctly understand the disease and avoid excessive pessimism or blind laissez-faire mentality.
2. Actively seek outside help. This includes choosing a professional medical rehabilitation facility nearby for treatment or learning family intervention methods.
3. Understand the personality of your child, choose a scientific, systematic, personalized training method, so that it is gradual, and should be detected and treated early.
4. Adhere to the principle of systematic intensive training while avoiding excessive fatigue of children. Some parents take their children to and from multiple training institutions, which has led to their children's burnout in the long run, and it is not advisable to do half the work.
5. Believe in the importance of home training! And through multi-channel learning of training and parenting strategies for children with autism, the intervention model of family participation is realized.
6. In the process of raising autistic children, parents try to maintain a stable mood, enough patience and perseverance to intervene, which plays a vital role in the growth of autistic children!
Source: Popular Science China