Couple of weeks back, while attending a cultural evening by 'intellectually challenged persons', one of my friends of college days, asked me two questions. 'What is Autism?' and 'What is the cause of Autism?'. These days he is seeing more on Autism in media and there are couple of kids with intellectual disabilities in his friends & family circle. He is not sure whether they are autistic. Though I am not an authority on this, let me try to demystify "Autism" based on my understanding and experience with my daughter.
Recently a person who visited us told us that my daughter is not Autistic. Previously few doctors and psychologists told us that she is Autistic. Got quite puzzled. Then we did an analysis of her with the major symptoms of Autism, and found that she has / had most of the symptoms. The focus of this post is to demystify Autism and not to discuss about my daughter's case.
Let's start with the wikipedia definition of Autism. As per Wikipedia, 'Autism is a developmental disorder characterised by troubles with social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behaviour'. As per many research studies 'Autism is a systemic body disorder that affects the brain. A toxic environment triggers certain genes in people susceptible to this condition'.
The definitions above are quite abstract, and to understand Autism better, let us look at some of the major symptoms of ASD.
Poor or Lack of Speech
This is a major issue with most autistic persons. They generally speak less leading to difficulty in communication. A good percentage of autistic persons are 'non verbal'. Intense speech therapy would help to a great extent to improve speech.
Over or under sensitive to sound
'Fear of sound' is seen in many autistic persons. This leads to, they refusing to go to cinema halls and similar other events. Some are under-sensitive.
Inappropriate playing with toys
Playing with toys is what expect all our children to do. Autistic children would generally find it difficult due to a combination of reasons. It could be poor motor control, leading to the inability to hold and move the toy properly. Another reason could be to understand the toy itself due to poor comprehension.
Restrictive repetitive behaviour
These could include repeated body movements such as rocking and hand-flapping, ritualistic behaviour, preoccupation with certain area of interest and uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person. The ritualistic behaviour at times can lead to injury to others or self injury.
Difficulty with changes in routine
Unexpected change to routine can be extremely stressful for people with ASD. When change occurs, persons with ASD may respond in a variety of ways, such as exhibiting withdrawal, repetitive behaviours, tantrums or aggression. These behaviours are typically the result of extreme anxiety, or inability to communicate emotions or desires.
Inappropriate laughing or crying
Persons with Autism may not understand the situations whether they have to laugh or cry. Because of lack of understanding of 'social' situations and 'appropriate responses', they are unable to respond in a way that we generally expect.
Lack of awareness of danger
Persons with Autism are not fully aware of their surroundings. They also have difficulty with body awareness, i.e. relation of themselves to their environment. Quite a few dangers doesn't get identified as dangers at all by them.
Hyperactivity or passiveness
Persons with Autism find it difficult to express anger, fear, anxiety or frustration in the same way as other neuro-typical persons. They tend to express these feelings through aggressive behaviour towards others. At times they become aggressive towards themselves, at times leading to self-injurious behaviour.
Over or under sensitive to touch
Many persons with Autism have difficulty in processing everyday sensory information. Any of the senses may be over- or under-sensitive. Those with over-sensitive wouldn't like to get touched whereas those with under-sensitive would frequently hug the dear ones. Such behaviours can be extended to other senses also.
Strange attachment to objects
Many autistic persons have highly focussed interests. These may change over a period of time or continue for long. These interests can be to music, trains, traffic lights, computers, numbers, body parts such as feet, bald head etc, They may also become attached to objects such as toys, stones, shoes etc.
Lack of eye contact
Eye contact is an important non-verbal communication behaviour most of us use for social interactions. Many persons with Autism find it difficult to make eye contact with others. This is one of the reasons for persons with Autism are poor in social communications.
Inability to relate to children and adults
Many autistic persons find it difficult to comprehend the difference between 'Young', 'Old', 'Big, 'Small' etc. with respect to age. This leads to quite a few behavioural issues, as their understanding on this aspect is 'different' than we expect.
I think, the above compilation of symptoms of Autism would give a basic understanding of 'What is Autism?'.
Autism is often referred as ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), which is a range of conditions classified as neuro-developmental disorders. Yes, it is not a disease, but a disorder. The term 'spectrum disorder' indicates that those identified with ASD can be placed in different positions in the spectrum, implying that, each person with ASD can be unique, with varying degrees of problems in different areas / symptoms.
The next question from my friend was ''What is the cause of Autism?'. This is a very difficult question to answer, as there are many theories floating around. Based on my reading of many books and articles over a period of many years, my understanding of causes for Autism is the following.
Dr Martha Herbert, a paediatric neurologist from Harvard Medical School has painted a picture of autism that shows how core abnormalities in body systems like immunity, gut function, and detoxification play a central role in causing the behavioural and mood symptoms of Autism. Too many vaccinations at very young age coupled with toxic environment all around, including in the kind of food we intake all seems to contribute to Autism. There are many successful case studies, where Autism has been addressed based on the bio-chemical considerations in the body, rather than looking at it as a psychological issue.
In many cases, I have seen Autism being treated by psychiatrists / psychologists with handful of strong tablets. Based on my understanding of Autism, it needs to be addressed very differently, with a holistic approach with combination of diet (to address biochemical issues) and many therapies.
Yes, we managed to 'not give' any psychiatric medicine to my daughter, in spite of her severe aggressive behaviour. A combination of non-medicinal therapies helped contain her aggression and bring considerable improvement in many behavioural and cognitive aspects.
The objective of this post was just to demystify Autism. I hope I have not complicated it instead of demystifying. In another post, I will touch up on the metrics on each symptom listed above for my daughter.
We do worry about autistic children. But, there are many persons with autism symptoms, have proved to the world that Autism is a Gift. Some of them are Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Isaac Newton, Darwin, Michelangelo, and Beethoven. The list is long. You yourself can google and find many celebrities who showed Autism symptoms.
Every year April month is observed as Autism Awareness Month and 2nd April is observed as Autism Awareness Day. Happy to have made this post in this month.
