- One in every 3000 American children were estimated to suffer from autism in the mid-nineties, but by the middle of the current decade, the number had risen to about one in every 500 believed to suffer from classic autism. For autism spectrum disorders, the number was then closer to 600 thousand children. The projections are that by the year 2010, going at this rate, one out of every ten American kids will suffer from some variation of the disease!

- There are many treatment procedures and a few medications that are known to help various physical symptoms of autism, but there is no cure. Research has been ongoing for years but the best that the medical community has to offer are possible risk factors from genetics, chemicals, and the environment. Besides that, there are only a number of training therapies that have not been proven to heal anyone just yet, and cannot be demonstrated as actually helping the autism patient improve in any way.

- At least one child has died from experimental procedures that are supposed to help find a cure for autism. Many clinicians are getting frustrated by the hollow and echoing lack of results after more than fifty years of testing and researching to find the cause and cure for autism, and they are beginning to grasp at straws. Heavy metal chelation, a chemical process that was supposed to bind with and extract heavy metal deposits of cadmium and mercury from the body of the patient, backfired once, and a child was lost without any positive results.

- Autism does not go into remission with the coming of age. If anything, the reality of it gets worse. Except for a few instances in which the sufferer may have high functioning autism and can function on their own in the society, most patients have to be supported throughout their lives and a close watch kept over them.

- Autism was once believed to have been caused by the refrigerator mother syndrome in which the set of symptoms that characterize the disease are as a result of coldness from the mother. Understandably, many mothers of autistic children were devastated by this report that was only rescinded late in the last century. More theories have sprung up, but none has yielded definitive results that can be backed by scientific proof.

- Autism itself is called classic autism, one of a class of five syndromes classified as PDDs – Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Basically, they all share the same symptoms except that the severity of the warning signs and the time of their onset in the patient. In some cases, some of the symptoms are missing; in other cases the symptoms are severe enough to result in the death of the patient.

- Autistic disorder is more common in boys than in girls; in fact, there are four times as many boys who suffer from the disease than there are girls. However, when girls have autism, their condition is so much more serious than that of the average male autism patient. Rett’s syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder that affects only girls and is very severe. Sometimes, this condition results in the death of the patient due to loss of motor skills, seizures and irregular breathing.

Autistic children make poor eye contact if at all, and rarely ever imitate sounds made to them. And in addition to that, they do not make gestures of their own or respond to those of others. An autism patient will rarely ever point at anyone or anything, and like a stubborn cat, they would rather look everywhere else than at the object you are pointing to. They do not make friends very well, and neither connect with their parents, siblings or caregivers because they are not expressive of their own feelings and they are not sensitive to that of others.

Most children with autism have significant delays in their ability to learn to speak, and there are several cases in which the patient actually never learns to speak at all. Plus, the fact that they don’t make gestures often also contributes to their inability to replace their ominously missing speech with signs and gesticulations. If they do speak, many times they tend to just repeat what you have spoken to them back at you in what you may think of as a parrot syndrome.

As a matter of fact, they could repeat whole parts of a movie, play or event to you verbatim as though they had some amazing ability, but then they could refuse to talk about anything else. Autistic patients tend to misuse pronouns, often using the second person in conversation to refer to themselves, and as they age, they rarely ever lose this symptom even if other characteristics improve their perceptibly.

People who suffer from autism have a limited number of interests at best, but those interests are intense enough to cause them to implode emotionally if you interrupt them. It is not often that you may notice this pattern in a child before they turn five years old, but it becomes more obvious as they approach maturity. They could pick on a specific toy and play with the same thing all day long every day, while not even playing in the same way most other kids would.

It is common to find a patient with autism sitting staring at a wall for long hours or just lining up their toys; they could repeat body movements all the time, and when in distress they could harm themselves by biting or knocking their heads against a wall.

Autistic patients tend to be extra sensitive the certain specific stimuli like sounds, sights, smells, or textures. They could hate the smell of new clothes bad enough to never want to touch them, or dread the sound of falling rain enough to freak out screaming when they hear it. Often they appear to be mentally retarded, but this has been proven to be non-generic; however, they do tend to have intellectual abilities that have been professionally put down as the savant syndrome.

For the most part, autism is treatable but not curable. Sufferers of the condition tend to live out the whole of their lives with little improvement, if any, and more often than not they require the presence of a caregiver for as long as they live. Some autism patients with high functioning autism are actually able to live and work on their own, with minimal support from family, friends, and the society, and even take on jobs in various practices. Others who are unfortunate enough not to have their symptoms lessen with time and have to be sustained all through life.

When a patient suffers from this developmental disease, you can usually tell as a layman from when they are about three years old, unless you are living in denial. The child does not respond to many gestures that you make in their direction, they do not answer or talk back when they are spoken to, and they never make gestures of their own. Of course, there is also the conspicuous absence of the ’social smile’ when people make friendly gestures at them.

There are psychologists and psychiatrists who can diagnose a child with autism from as early as when they are still in the cradle. Due to improvements in diagnostic techniques and procedures in recent years, there is little problem with that.

As they gradually grow up, your autistic child may never make any friends. As a matter of fact, they may never mix with their siblings or respond even to you. You may find them sitting alone by themselves in a corner of the room staring into space with a line of toys right in front of them. If you got in their way, the autistic child can freak out and then just go back to rearranging their toys in a straight line.

It has been confirmed through various tests, experiments and research that there is a genetic link to the susceptibility of a child to suffer from autism, although the link itself has not been determined. The Refrigerator Mother idea was postulated at one time also, suggesting that bad parenting may have caused the disorder in some way. This was greatly misleading at the time, and was rather overwhelming for several families. Thankfully, the notion of it has been disproved and families now know that it is most likely due to no fault of theirs that the child suffers.

It is also believed that several environmental factors have the potential to cause a child to have autism. Factors such as pollutants and chemicals in the surrounding, illness that the mother of the child suffered from during pregnancy or medication that was taken then, and such the like, were thought to have been culprit. These have not been proven by any kind of research results and thus remains highly speculative, although researchers are almost certain that high metal content in diets certainly have a contribution to it all.

No, they do not know what causes autism or how it can be cured, except that it is something that could have been avoided. You can best prevent autism by living a healthy a clean life, free of toxins and poisons, and full of activity and exercise that will keep you in good physical and medical shape. Then there will be no genetic malady you can pass on to your offspring that would result in autism.

It is important to know that children that have autism do not communicate with words effectively, rather they do communicate with behaviors. These behaviors could be repetitive and unacceptable to those around because harm can be done to the autistic or those around.

Since the autistic child cannot communicate freely without having difficulties, the behaviors usually displayed to pass their feelings across include; kicking, scratching, screaming, crying, biting, hitting, hair pulling, head butting, spitting, singing, pinching, pushing etc. It is important that you understand these behaviors and also know why the autistic usually engages in them.

Through effective autism research, it has been discovered that children with autism engage in such behaviors because of the following reasons

· The patients engage in the behaviors because they will want to avoid certain things that they will not have to do.

· They engage in these habits because they want to get what they want.

· Also, they want to get attention if they exhibit the behaviors.

· The habits can also be for the purposes of stimulating their dull sensory perceptions.

You really need to understand the child with autism and provide him the needed autism treatment. If you understand these peculiar behaviors, you are one step-up in providing the cure for the patient.

If you are a parent or an intending one, there are certain signs you need to monitor in your child to know if that child is having autism symptoms. The major signs to monitor usually affects the communicative and behavior skills of the patient. Read the following signs as a way of carrying out autism diagnoses in your children.

The first sign area you will like to watch out for is the ability of the child to display the needed social skill when it is time. A normal child is likely to show gestures and imitate certain words before he or she reaches one year and six months. If your child at this age cannot show this skill then watch out for him very well because he might be patient of autism.

Another area of monitoring you will need to do on your infant is the behavior he or she is constantly exhibiting. An autistic child usually displays a repetitive character like repetition of some words when it is not necessary; flapping of hands etc. the habit is often referred to as stimming. A child with autism usually displays this habit.

Finally, you need to watch out on how your child communicates. It is generally on record that two-third of autistic children do not talk. If your child refuses to talk when he or she is supposed to do so then that should be source of concern to you. Autistic children usually have language problem and you need to take that child to a physician for proper medical diagnoses.

In conclusion, the above signs are part of the discoveries made by autism researches over the years and these conditions can be treated if the right autism medications are applied. It is still best to seek the services of a qualified medical doctor.

Some have trouble deciding what to focus upon while listening to a teacher, reading a text, or looking over a mathematics problem; but patients suffering from autism have serious difficulties in interacting and communicating with other people, making them that much harder to deal with.

The fact that autism patients demonstrate impulsive behavior which causes them to perform poorly in most learning environments often requires that special concessions be made for them so they can learn also. For a fact, no single teaching approach is right for every child with autism, which has necessitated that federal law obligate public schools to assess each child’s individual needs and provide the appropriate instructive setting to meet the specific needs of the child. Because their learning capacities vary, some persons suffering from the psychological malady may end up needing special care throughout their lives while others may learn to function independently in society.

There are mainly three treatment procedures for autism that are agreed upon in the medical community. Some people still frown on a number of them, but most generally accept these three above the rogue theories of certain clinicians and parents desperate for results. The first autism treatment procedure known to most medical practitioners is the Ivar Lovaas behavioral modification system.

Lovaas was an American psychologist who broke new grounds with this treatment technique that used immediate rewards to compensate an autistic child, and instant punishments to shape the child’s behavior. The education of children with autism using this procedure does have a controversial aspect of this approach: this is the use of an electric shock to discourage the patient from self-destructive behavior in extreme cases. Understandably, not a lot of parents like that.

Various mental challenges have found help using the The Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication-Handicapped Children (TEACCH) system for treating patients. This is a procedure that uses a picture schedule related to tasks that are limited by time to gradually build on the skills of the patient. This is similar to the above technique in that it also includes a reward for good behavior. The reward in this case is a task that the child likes more than others. The TEACH system does have a merit over the Lovaas technique which makes it preferred by parents: the absence of the electric shock.

Autism treatment by the Floortime system uses frequent play sessions with the parent of the patient to build a relationship with the child while also teaching them other important things. This course of autistic disorder management connects therapy goals with activities that the patient finds very exciting or fun so that they can gain significant skills while also developing a deeper relationship with their parents.

Naturally, there are various methods used in the education of children with autism and various mental challenges, but it is not clear whether any one approach is better than another. The choice is yours” with guidance from the child’s psychiatrist.

Autism is a condition that is marked by serious difficulties in interacting and communicating with other people. Other indications may include constantly repeating certain actions or behaviors, or having intense interests restricted to only particular things or topics. They are often warning signs that come rather late along the line because the disease is mostly believed to have started from when the sufferer was an infant.

Symptoms of autism usually appear before the age of three and can last the rest of your lifetime. In low functioning autism, your child actually, might have the symptoms since when he or she an infant of perhaps three months old in your arms. Autism is believed to be at least four times more common in boys than in girls, but when it does happen in girls it is a lot more severe.

Interestingly, autism is only one of set of Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs) that constitute the autism spectrum. The other autism spectrum disorders are Rett’s syndrome, Asperger’s syndrome, Childhood Developmental Disorder (CDD), and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). They all share a set of symptoms that cause them to be classified together, but that are distinct in them.

The primary symptoms of the autism spectrum disorders are social difficulties, communication troubles, unusual behaviors like repetitiveness and restricted interests, associated symptoms like sensory sensitivity and occasional bowel problem (about the only physical symptom that accompanies these disorders), and mental retardation or savant skills which causes them to appear like they are really good at something that nobody else is.

All autism spectrum disorders have one or two of these symptoms to varying degrees but only autism itself has them all. Because of the absence of a cure, your loved one may never pull out their inability to communicate with other people, but they may acquire some skills that make life easier for you and them..

You will do well to know your autism spectrum disorders so that you can tell one from the other and you can bring a professional into the picture at the precise time that you need to.

However, I will tell you that it is possible to triumph over autism and live your life to fullness and fulfillment. In the United States today, close to a million children have been diagnosed with autism and other autism spectrum disorders as you read, and the number continues to climb. By estimation, that is around two hundred thousand autism patients in each state, and perhaps a thousand in the city that you live in. My point, there are many more people suffering from the disease around you than you realize, and the reason you are hearing so much about them is because they have acquired various techniques that help in managing autism, so that they can triumph.

Now, don’t go thinking that it is a walk in the park, because it isn’t. First you have to realize that this is a lifetime commitment you will never be able to dodge out of, and secondly you must acknowledge to yourself that the patient – this loved one of yours – may never improve enough to be able to say a coherent thank you for the sacrifices that you are making on their behalf.

If you are intent on having a career of your own, do not try to be both parent and caregiver to an autistic child – the exertion will be way more than your system can handle. Instead, you should do a favor and hire a professional caregiver to either live in or pay daily visits to care for your child. You could also register them in one of the specialized schools for helping autistic patients and other mental related diseases that are popping up all over the place. Do yourself a favor and do not let money be a factor making this decision. You already have this child; there is no backing out.

Secondly, you may want to do yourself a favor by logging on to the internet and joining any one of the autism societies online. You are sure to find more than a few of them, and they are bound welcome you with open arms. Various parents and people who have loved ones suffering from autism and autism spectrum disorders can share their experiences with you, and you can share yours with them. Together, you can find comfort in the fact that you are triumphing over a debilitating disorder in ways that would have made other people cave in.

Perhaps one day, some ten or twenty years into the future, the autistic child or sibling might make a gesture, say a word, make deliberate eye contact with you, or settle in an uncharacteristic way when you are in the same room, and that could be all the thanks that you ever get from them for your efforts. But when that happens – and it will – you will know that your efforts have not been wasted.

One of the ways that is recommended to treat autism is by providing the patient with an effective education that will help to control the behavioral pattern in him. Teaching children with autism can be done by the parent or by special schools for autism. The following factors should be considered when educating children with autism.

The first factor to consider is patience. When dealing with autistic children, frustration can set in. it is your duty to remain calm since the behavior of the child when you are teaching him may be annoying.

Another consideration you have to put in mind is the ability of the child to concentrate. Certain things that will cause distractions for the child should be removed from the learning environment. There are conspicuous items or materials that will easily draw his attention always while learning. Keep these items out of the room.

Finally, get the very best of teaching materials for the child. Learning materials that will guarantee one communication should be provided for autism education.

Wrong!

Autism doesn’t just make children look lost and listless; they actually are lost and listless. But they don’t absolutely have to stay that way. There are a few procedures that are actually beyond just the experimental stage that are helpful in bringing your autistic child back to life by teaching them certain behaviors and helping them to appreciate them. You will do well to learn these behavioral interventions for autistic children so that you can use them on your autistic child and see how well they will improve socially.

The first thing you want to achieve is to get the child to trust you so that you can relate better with them. If an autistic child can trust their parent, they will be better able to learn from them,. In this bid, the best technique for educating children with high functioning autism would be to adopt the Floor time system of autism therapy.

The above mentioned is a training approach that involves a lot of activity between parent and the autistic child under the direction and supervision of a professional autism caregiver. The system aims to connect all kinds of therapy goals with activities that the child finds to be exciting or fun. As you well know, there aren’t a lot of things that an autistic child will find exciting, so you don’t have to look too far. The technique allows your child to ideally gain or acquire positive behavioral skills and at the same time build a healthy relationship with you.

When you are done with teaching the autistic child to appreciate your presence fully, you may want to stay with the process, or migrate to the TEACCH technique. This is a training approach that was perfected by the Treatment and Education of Autistic and Related Communication-Handicapped Children here in the United States. It uses a picture schedule to induce your kid into gradually acquiring skills that they never would have had otherwise. It uses tasks that the child loves to help them appreciate other tasks that are time-limited in nature, but that they may have skipped otherwise.

Perhaps the most controversial way you can give your young autistic child the behavioral interventions that they need would be the behavioral modification system perfected by psychiatrist Ivar Lovaas. A lot of parents shun this technique because they consider it cruel. You have to treat the autistic child to an electric shock whenever they do something that is harmful to them. It is usually reserved for some of the worst cases of child autism known to man.

Perhaps if you can give these three steps a shot, either or all of them may work for you, and you can be more involved indeed in the life of your autistic adolescent.