CREATING AWARENESS FOR AUTISTIC CHILDREN

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Hello steemians! Hope everybody is having a great day, my post today is about AUTISM. Autism is a developmental disorder distinguished by difficulties with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. The signs becomes prominent in the first two or three years of their child's life. These signs often develop stepwise, but some children with this disorder reach their developmental landmarks at a normal pace and then becomes worse. Autism also know as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a lifelong disorder that affects the way a victim interacts with his of her environment, The issues are social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and restricive or repetitive behaviors.

CAUSES
Many scientists cannot pin pint the exact cause of autism but there are a variety of possible causes. Autism could be caused by genetic and environmental factors. It could also be caused by Infections during pregnancy like rubella as well as valproic acid, alcohol, or cocaine use during pregnancy. It can also be heritable passed down from the DNA from earlier generations of the victim.

History of the disorder
Autism was discovered by researchers in the early 1940s, Two researchers by the name of Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner were the first scientists to take an interest in the research study for autism in the 1940s. In 1943 Leo Kanner performed a study on 11 kids. The kids were very intelligent. But he found out that they had issues like changing environments, being sensitive to a particular kind of stimuli, having speech difficulties and allergies to food. Later he named the children’s condition “early infantile autism”. Leo Kanner's discovery is now called autistic disorder, childhood autism, infantile autism, or simply autism.

In 1944 Hans Asperger studied separately a group of children and found closely related conditions. But the children in Hans Asperger's study don't repeat words. Also, they had no speech problems like Kanner's group of kids did. However, the kids did have problems with fine motor skills such as holding a pens. The children he studied seemed to be awkward compared to other children. They also had “a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversation, intense absorption in a special interest and clumsy movements. Hans Asperger described a "milder" form of autism, his discovery is now known as Asperger syndrome.

Indication of autism

• A baby without autism is usually interested in other people. Autistic babies usually likes objects more than faces and other people. They may look at a face for a second or two, but quickly turn away. They usually do not smile or may only smile at what they are interested in. Autistic children likes to be by themselves. They are in most cases not interested in making friends. They sometimes don't react normally to hugging and other signs of love by their parents. This should not be taken to mean that they do not love their parents, they just do not know how to express it. Very Often, it is difficult for them to know what other people think or feel. For instance, they might not see much difference between whether a parent is smiling or feeling sad. They sometimes laugh and cry at the wrong times. Most do not understand that someone else can have different thoughts and feelings than they do.

• An autistic child may not try to talk, indicate, or try to get a message across by the time they are one year of age. Alot do not understand language. The ones who speak usually do not show changes in pitch and tone. The voice usually sounds monotonic. But pitch and tone are important for communication. It helps to interpret the meaning of the words. the use of homographs is difficult for people diagnosed with autism. Most victims of autism have problems to understand gestures or facial expression. They have only a limited amount of facial expressions. Which makes it difficult to express themselves or understand the expressions of other people. Sometimes , they try to communicate using pictures in books, photos, signing or picture cards when they don't speak but have clear understanding of language.

• many autism victims suffer from restrictive behavior, autism victims spend a lot of time doing the same things all over again like turning around in circles or putting things in order. Other typical behaviours are rocking, twisting and flapping around. These behaviours do not serve as communication. They often last up to adulthood and usually turn into obsessions. autistic people sometimes get interested in bizarre things, and may spend alot of their time learning about their interests. autistic people are intolerant to any form of change usually becoming enrage if their routines are tampered with. They do exactly the same things over and over again. though some can tolerant a change in routine with forewarning.

• Many autism affected children can become addicted with junk food but steadfastly avoid vegetables. they do not like soft, lumpy food. Many do not want to try new foods. Many autism victims try to eat metal, plastic, paper and stones. Many autistic children do not like to touch wet or sticky things. they do not like to be touched by other people except from maybe their parents. The response is usually a troubled reaction like crying. Many autism affected children do not show any indication of pain.

They are more sensitive to background noises compared to normal kids, especially metallic noises cause by airplane,trains e.t.c

Treatment of autism
Scientists can't really pinpoint the exact cause of autism. So that means it is only possible to lower the symptoms of autism. A full recovery from autism is regrettably not possible. If therapies cannot reduce the symptoms of autism, certain medications are added. several medications are used at the same time to treat different symptoms of autism. Some medications used are

• Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI)
• Antipsychotic medication
• Psychostimulants
  Therapies are also used by doctors especially for autistic children
• Animal therapy
• music therapy
• Art therapy

Around the World , autism is estimated to affect 24.8 million people as of 2015. In the 2000s the number of people affected was estimated at 1–2 per 1,000 people globally . In developed countries about 1.5% of children are diagnosed with ASD as of 2017.

I hope everybody really found this post very educative especially those of us who have kids or will soon have kids.

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