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Posts Tagged ‘Autism Children’

28
Jul

Autism – Causes and Treatments

Autism is one condition that requires speech therapy treatment. However, autism is often misunderstood and thought of to be something that can be left untreated. However, that should not be how things work. Autism presents a lot of problems, but the intensity of these problems could be decreased if given the correct treatment.
A lot of terms are commonly heard in relation to autism, such as: classic autism, infantile autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Atypical PDD, Autistic like, PDD-NOS, Asperger’s Syndrome and high functioning Autistic.
What Is Autism
Basically, Autism is a neurological disorder. It is classified to be a Pervasive Developmental Disorder. The main characteristic of Autism is that it affects three major areas in relation to speech and language. This triad is the impairment of the child’s: social interaction, communication and imaginative play.
Pervasive Developmental Disorder is actually an umbrella term for Autistic Spectrum Disorders. With the use of the term pervasive, it is emphasized that the disability’s range of deficits is beyond psychological development. On the other hand, the term developmental puts emphasis that the occurrence of the condition is during the child’s development rather than later in life.
Autism is actually only one condition under this umbrella. Other conditions include Rett’s Disorder, which is a neurodevelopmental disorder that begins to show its symptoms during early childhood or infancy.
Another is Childhood Disintegrative Disorder; it somewhat resembles Autism but the difference is the first two to four years of the child’s life is rather normal, then the symptoms start to show.
Asperger’s syndrome is also in this umbrella. It is sometimes called high functioning autism. Lastly, PDD-NOS or Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not otherwise specified is also related to Autism. These are children that present symptoms similar to but don’t quite match the other conditions.
What Causes Autism
Even though a lot of research has been done, there is no identified single factor that causes Autism. Several factors are said to play a part in the occurrence of Autism. One of these is brain disorder. Recent studies show that there is a difference in the brains of people with Autism. Their cerebellum seems to be smaller than normal, and their limbic system is impaired.
Chemical imbalances are also said to play a part here. It was found that in some cases, symptoms came from food allergies, chemical deficiencies, hormonal imbalances or elevated brain chemical levels.
Heredity is also an important factor. A lot of genetic disorders have Autism as a symptom. An example would be the fragile-X syndrome. Other factors include pre-, peri-, post-natal trauma, brain damage complications and MMR immunization.
Whatever the cause may be, the child with Autism should be given the same structured training in able to stimulate his learning, language and social skills.
Diagnosis
For a child to be diagnosed of having Autism, he should first qualify for the Diagnostic Criteria for Autistic Disorders according to the DSM-IV.
Treatment
Due to the triad of Autism effects on the child, speech therapy becomes a vital part of Autism management. However, other members of the team are also needed such as pediatrician, pediatric neurologist, child psychiatrist, psychologist, occupational therapist, behavior therapist, and educators like schoolteachers or Special Education teachers.
Role Of Speech Therapist In Autism Rehabilitation
The Speech Therapist assesses hearing. He also evaluates whether the speech and language difficulties of the child is really due to Autism or another disorder. This can be taken from analyzing the child’s expressive language, receptive language, oral-motor functions, voice quality, articulation and fluency, auditory processing and pragmatic skills.

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26
Jul

Autism Treatment

When it comes to Autism Treatment, you will often find that professionals cannot determine an exact or generic solution, as it depends on the kind of step that the teenager or adult has, therefore, each patient has to be analyzed individually resulting o a case-by-case approach.

Autism treatment can be held in many varieties, for instance, it may involve some combination of intensive behavioral, speech and language therapy and special education in public schools. There is no cure for autism; nonetheless, with appropriate treatment and education, many children with the disorder can learn and develop. Early intervention is recommended as it reduces challenges associated with the disorder, lessen disruptive behavior, and provide some degree of independence.

Early diagnosis is now being given to children as young as 8 months, improves the chances of treatment success, in other words, the faster the treatment starts, the better. Autism is in most of the cases a disorder presented in male patients, making cases in females rare to find. New approaches on autism treatment consist on forms of play based behavioral therapies and alternative methods involving vitamins and dietary restrictions, although many autism treatment experts vigorously disagree over whether these offer benefit, there has not been any concluding study that determines neither the benefits nor the counter indications on such treatments.

Risk factors

Autism affects children of all races and nationalities, but certain factors are known to increase a child’s risk. They include: Family history. Families who have one child with autism have an increased risk of having another child with the disorder. Other disorders. Children with certain medical conditions have a higher than normal risk of having autism. These conditions include fragile X syndrome; epilepsy; Tourette syndrome; and tuberous sclerosis. Paternal age. Research increasingly suggests that having an older father may increase a child’s risk of autism. One large study showed that children born to men 40 years or older were almost six times more likely to have autism spectrum disorder than were children born to men younger than 30 years. Therefore autism treatment has to consider many variables when establishing a treatment plan.

Diagnosis

Your child’s doctor will look for signs of developmental delays at regular checkups. If your child shows some signs of autism, you may be referred to a specialist in treating children with autism. This specialist, working with a team of professionals, can perform a formal evaluation for the disorder to start the autism treatment.

Occupational therapy and physical therapy are sometimes used to treat autism. Occupational therapy helps improve independent function and teaches basic skills (e.g., buttoning a shirt, bathing, even walking on surfaces that the kid does not feel comfortable walking over). Physical therapy involves using exercise and other physical measures (e.g., massage, heat) to help patients control body movements. As seen above, autism treatment involves a holistic approach.

Behavior modification

There are several methods of behavior modification that are used to treat inappropriate, repetitive, and aggressive behavior and to provide autistic patients with skills necessary to function in their environment. Most types of behavior modification are based on the theory that rewarded behavior is more likely to be repeated than behavior that is ignored. This theory for autism treatment is called applied behavior analysis (ABA).

Behavior modification often involves highly structured, skill-oriented activities that are based on the patient’s needs and interests to provide an effective autism treatment. It usually requires intense, one-on-one training with a therapist and extensive caregiver involvement. Such activities include:

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26
Jul

Autism

AUTISM

Autism starts before a child turns to three years. It is a disorder in the brain development which weakens the social interaction and communication. Autism causes restricted and repetitive behavior. Autism is a hereditary disorder even though the genetics of autism are complex and it is unclear which genes are responsible. Autism is associated with agents which cause birth defects in rare cases. Other possible causes of autism are childhood vaccines which are controversial and the vaccine hypotheses lack convincing scientific evidence. According to the experts out of 1000 children 3-6 children will have autism. Male are four times more to have autism than females.

Symptoms

The occurrence of autism is not known and it affects many parts of the brain. In the first two years of the child’s life, parents usually notice the signs of autism. Autism is characterized by three distinctive behaviors. The autistic children have difficulties with social interaction, problems with verbal and non verbal communication, and repetitive behaviors or narrow, obsessive interests. There is a reduced sensitivity of pain, but are more sensitive to sound, touch or other sensory stimulation. These reactions may contribute to the behavioral symptoms such as a resistance to being cuddled or hugged. There is no cure for autism but treatment can help. The early behavioral and cognitive interference can help them to develop self-care, social and communication. An infant with autism may be non responsive to people or focus intently on one item by excluding others for a long period of time. With this disorder few children live independently after reaching adulthood and some of them become successful. Some people believe that autism is a condition than a disorder.

Autism children have speech problems, they might not look in to the eyes when talk to them. Before they can pay attention they may have to line up their pencils, these children will say the same sentence again and again. To tell that they are happy they flap their arms or they might hurt themselves if they are not. Some people never learn to talk. They lack empathy. The autistic children cannot interpret the thoughts and feelings of others and also cannot understand the tone of voice and facial expressions. The autistic people have different symptoms and because this it is known as spectrum disorder. The milder version of this disorder is Asperger syndrome. The disorder lasts throughout a person’s life time. Autism shares numerous signs with Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder. Asperger’s syndrome does not have any delay in the language development. Autistic children are at a higher risk for some co-existing conditions such as fragile X syndrome which causes mental retardation, tuberous sclerosis in which the tumors grow on the brain, epileptic seizures, Tourette syndrome, disabilities in learning and attention deficit disorder. By the time autistic children reach adulthood about 20 to 30% of children develop epilepsy for the reasons unknown. Also schizophrenic people may show some autistic-like behavior but the symptoms do not appear until the late teens or early adulthood. The Schizophrenic people also have hallucinations and delusions which are not found in autism.

Diagnose

Based on the IQ autism is sometimes divided in to the low, medium and high functioning autism. The child affected by autism will show less attention to social stimuli, smile and look at others less often and very rarely respond to their own name. The severity and symptoms of autism may go unrecognized mainly in mildly affected children or when it is covered by more weakening handicaps. Doctors depend on a group of behaviors for diagnosing autism. These behaviors are:

(1) Unable to make friends with peers

(2) Unable to initiate or to continue a conversation with others.

(3) Absence of imaginative and social play.

(4) Unusual, typecast, repetitive use of language.

(5) Preoccupation with certain subjects or objects.

(6) Rigid devotion to certain routines or rituals.

With help of a questionnaire or any other screening instrument doctors assemble information about the child’s development and behavior. Some screening depends on the parent observations and some others on a combination of parent and doctor observations. If there is an indication or possibility of autism, the doctors will ask for more comprehensive evaluation. As autism is a complex disorder a combined evaluation is needed with a multidisciplinary team including psychologist, neurologist, psychiatrist, speech therapist and other expert in diagnosing the children with ASDs. Girls with autism may be suffering from Rett syndrome, a sex-linked genetic disorder described by social withdrawal, deteriorated language skills and hand wringing.

Treatment

Autism cannot be cured. But according to the experts the earlier intervention can make them to cope up with the day-to-day life. Structured and skill oriented training sessions to help children develop social and language skills. Counseling for parents and siblings of autistic children can help the families to cope with the challenges of living with an autistic child. To handle symptoms of anxiety, depression or obsessive compulsive disorder doctors often prescribe anti depressant medications. To treat severe behavioral problems anti-psychotic medicines are used. With one or more of the anti-convulsant drugs seizures can be treated. To reduce impulsiveness and hyperactivity stimulant drugs are some times used effectively. There are several therapies which are controversial and parents should be aware of that before taking in to consideration any of these treatments.

21
Jul

Autism Understanding Furthered By International Genetic Study

Autism understanding begins when a person realizes that autism is a disorder that affects people differently. Although autism affects the normal functioning of a person’s perception, attention and thoughts, autism is not characterized by one type of perception, attention and thought. Instead, it covers a broad spectrum of disorders that may be mild or severe. Due to the fact that autism is such a complex disorder, medical research is still in the process of understanding how it develops and why it affects certain individuals.
One particular medical project with the aim to find better autism understanding by identifying the gene that causes autism, is the 5 year Autism Genome Project (AGP). So far, phase I of the AGP has identified a gene and parts of a chromosome to be linked with the occurrence of autism. The findings of this particular autism study was published online in the Nature Genetics February 18, 2007 issue.
The Autism Genome Project is a global research consortium that is funded by Autism Speaks and the National Institute of Health. Autism Speaks is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to raising the awareness of autism and raising funds to help research it.
The AGP involves more than 120 scientists from 50 institutions in 19 countries around the world. The researchers who have collaborated on the project combined their autism expertise, and shared all of the data and samples they had to help identify autism-related genes.
As was mentioned, phase I of this project began 5 years ago in 2002, and it allowed the team of medical experts to gain autism understanding by identifying a single specific gene known as neurexil 1, and part of chromosome 11 which could likely be the cause of autism in children. These findings are based on the largest autism genome scan that has ever been done.
Scientists have known for many years that autism is a genetic disorder, but only until the AGP have they been able to use special “gene chip” technology to search for genetic similarities in autistics. Genetic similarities were found in practically all of the autistic individuals within each of the twelve hundred families that that were made part of the project. The scientists also checked the DNA of each family to look for copy number variations that are believed might be connected to autism and similar disorders.
What the researches discovered in their study was that one particular gene known as neurexin 1 plays a significant role with glutamate; a neurotransmitter that has been formerly linked to autism. Researchers also uncovered an area of chromosome 11 that is suspected to contain a gene that may be involved in the occurrence of autism. However, this particular gene in chromosome 11 has yet to be identified which is required for further autism understanding.
Based on previous research, and the research that has been uncovered by the study so far, scientists speculate that there may be as many as 6 main genes and 30 additional genes linked to autism. However, these numbers are only theories, as scientists point out that the actual number of genes could exceed their theory. Nevertheless, despite the number of genes that may be involved, researchers admit that it is still far too early to dictate how these genes may be responsible for autism.
Currently, phase II of the Autism Genome Project has been announced. The promising discoveries found in phase I makes scientists hopeful that discovering the genes that cause autism will provide new steps toward autism understanding. With greater understanding, more effective methods of diagnosis, preventing and treating the disorder can be taken.

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