Hello everyone and welcome to another science write-up from me. Today I will be continuing on neurodevelopmental disorders which affect humans, and I will be touching on other disorders such as Autism spectrum disorder. I started this topic in my last post, and I wrote about Cerebral Palsy in Infants.
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I was at a friends house some months ago, he was sharing with me his experience with taking care of his child who has autism spectrum disorder. He told me he had changed his son's nanny 3 times in one year because some of them become fraustrated, while others just do not know how to take care of him. Caring for an autistic child can be a lot as people might not be trained to do so and so I felt his pain. Before I continue, if it had a cure, I am sure my friend do not mind selling his entire property to see his child fine but Autism spectrum disorder cannot be treated, it can only be managed, so it doesn't affect the child's day to day activities. What is Autism Spectrum disorder?
Autism Spectrum disorder is a broad-spectrum disorder that has to do with the communication and interaction being affected. Patients with autism spectrum disorder have different characteristics and are not the same as other disorders. Patients with autism follow a spectrum that poses different symptoms ranging from mild to severe. If patients have different characteristics then how do we identify people with autism? There are key signs that are common with people with autism spectrum disorder and they can be characterized based on communication and social, behavior, and responses to environmental stimuli. People with autism spectrum disorder do not pick up facial expressions or other non-verbal cues. They have trouble understanding the emotions and non-verbal cues of others. They find it hard to communicate causing them to grab or scream so as to be able to pass messages. People with autism spectrum disorder have very low social lives and they would have restrictive behavior and an increased interest level in whatever they focus on. They have repetitive behaviors with activities. People with autism spectrum disorder can respond differently to stimuli, such as being bothered with small stimuli while not bothered with high stimuli activity such as squeezing of their hands or blasting loud sounds.
People who have blood relatives with autism spectrum disorder have a high chance of getting autism, also boys are more likely to have autism spectrum disorder than girls, and the older a parent is when having kids, the higher the chance of Autism Spectrum disorder. Diagnosis of autism disorder isn't done via a test or scan that can be used t make a diagnosis, rather signs being displaced by the patient is what is used to diagnose autism but this is done using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5). To diagnose autism spectrum disorder patient must have persistent deficit in communication and interaction, which will include deficit in emotional and social reciprocity, deficit with maintaining and building relationship and deficit in nonverbal communication. Patient with autism must have restrictive and repetitive behaviors and interest. To confirm these diagnoses, the behaviors have to be visible in the patients from cchildhood,and they interfere with the life of the children.
Managing autism spectrum disorder will be addressing their strengths and symptoms as there is no cure with the troubles of autism but ensuring that it doesn't affect their day to day life is important. It is important to create an ideal environment which addresses the trouble autistic children might have. It is important to teach them how to communicate and interact, it is also good that the child have a lot of time to interact with their peers, and their environment. Communication with nonverbal gestures can be used so the autistic child learns to understand nonverbal communication gradually. It is important to help the child with a structured environment which will help them with their repetitive activities and routines are followed to the later.
Citation
- https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/signs.html
- https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/autism/what-is-autism-spectrum-disorder
- https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/autism-spectrum-disorders
- https://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7082249/
- https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/127/1/91/5073298