PakMediNet Discussion Forum : Pediatrics : Autism awareness
Autism awareness
A few decades ago, autism was a rare word in the medical vocabulary. Unfortunately that's not the case anymore. The incidence of autism has increased from 1:10,000 to 1:500 in this decade and its still on the rise. Various factors are being blamed and studied but none has been proven to be the cause. On the top of the list are early childhood vaccinations, prenatal viral infections, genetics, enviromental pollutants and toxins. One factor that is out of the list however is parental neglegence.
Almost everything about autism is complex and mind boggling, from diagnosis, to therapeutic interventions and prognostic outcomes. While majority of the severe autistics are still considered unteachable, aggressive and voilent and are destined to ending up in institutional homes, we have wonderfull examples of people like Dr. Temple Gardin, a PhD. vetenarian, Dr. Shirin DeSilva, a medical doctor and an occupational therapist and hundreds of other well educated autistics who have proven their initial prognosis to be wrong and have given lots of hope to the parents of autistic kids.
Totally impressed by their acheivements and my own son's potentials, now I am dedicated to increasing autism awareness and educating professionals and parents about the early recognition of the condition and therapeutic interventions as that can impact the child's future in a very positive way. I currently reside in British Columbia, Canada and I am working as a behaviour therapy consultant for autistic kids here. As travelling to Pakistan is not an option for me due to my own son's needs, I will really appreciate your comments and suggestions about how I can best achieve my objective in Pakistan regarding this matter, thanks.
[Edited by drsaima on 05-17-2005 at 01:11 AM GMT]
[Edited by drsaima on 05-17-2005 at 01:12 AM GMT]
[Edited by drsaima on 05-17-2005 at 01:14 AM GMT]
[Edited by drsaima on 05-28-2005 at 05:25 AM GMT]
Posted by: drsaimaPosts: 6 :: 16-05-2005 :: | Reply to this Message
Re: Autism awareness
Thank you for your information.
Can you tell me as well as other users, what actually is autism and what are its symptoms or signs if any? What is the possible pathology involved and is there any treatment available so far?
Posted by: yasirPosts: 90 :: 17-05-2005 :: | Reply to this Message
Re: Autism awareness
Dear doctor,
Thanks for showing an interest. I will try to address one issue at a time.
Autism is now considered to be a biologically based disorder. Although previously assumed a psychiatric, neurological and abusive, all of these bases have been ruled out now.
The cause of autism is still unknown, although there are lots of hypotheses and numerous continuing reseaches going on.
The sign and symptoms become apparent during the first 3 years of childhood.
DSM-IV, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-4th, Checklist is currently used to diagnose this disorder. It contains the diagnostic criteria for psychiatric and developmental disorders and is specified by the American Psychiatric Association. The listed features in the category of autistic disorder include:
1. Presence of impaired development of communicative skills. They have difficulty communicating needs, like asking for food, help etc. Verbal speech is delayed or unusual, non verbal speech like pointing, gesturing does not develope either.
2. Difficulty in social interaction. They may avoid eye contact with even the family members and are not interested in playing with other kids. They have difficulty in understanding other people's intentions and feelings.
3. Extremely restricted intersts and activities. Children ususally spend hours fixated doing same things over and over again and show resistance to move to another activity. For example linning blocks, staring in space, moving hand on rough surfaces back and forth. Children also show sterotype, repeated activities, like spinning, rocking, hand flapping, finger flicking etc.
The DSM-IV criteria for autism is usually scored on the basis of information gained from ADOS and ADI-R.
ADOS, stands for Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, and is a structured, play based observational tool for differential diagnosis of autism and related disorders. It includes a series of 10 activities designed to sample social skills, communicative abilities and preferences for repititive play and movements. The child is then rated on a series of detailed criteria and the overall score is compared to a cuttoff.
ADI-R, is a semi-structured interview that is completed with a child's parent. Its about a series of detailed questions about symptoms of autism that may be shown by the child, now or in the past.
I will address the therapeutic options on my next post.
Saima
[Edited by drsaima on 05-17-2005 at 07:14 PM GMT]
[Edited by drsaima on 05-17-2005 at 11:31 PM GMT]
Posted by: drsaimaPosts: 6 :: 17-05-2005 :: | Reply to this Message
Re: Autism awareness
Autistic kids have sensory sensitivities that affect their learning process. Majory suffers from sound, visual and tactile sensitivities. The background sounds, like running water, wind, rain etc. are percieved as too loud. There have huge colour and light sensitivities and kids are actually scared of light touch and therefore of trying out new toys and stuff. Almost all of them crave for lots of pressure, dim lights, soft music and sesory play...like playing with water, sand, gravel. Ones with good motor skills, love to run around, jump and spin.
Overall their appetite and sleep is quite poor and they suffer from various nutritional deficiences and yeast infection of the intenstines. Most of them have a h/o of repeated ear infections, intermittent diarrhoea and constipation and have an overall look of a spaced out unhappy child.
Early diagnosis and one on one play / work with the child on a set pogram plan is the way to help these children develope age appropriate skills.
As every child with this diagnosis is very different, it is tough, but crucial to have a child specific program. However there are some basic steps that almost always work for all the kids and professionals, parents can work on those steps to make the child comfortable and playfull first.
These kids react very well to structure and consistency, which are very essential to keep the child calm. Let the child play with different sensory medias in a quite comfortable enviroment and be his/her play partner, 2-3 hours/day...every day. Once the initial connection of trust has been established, introduce little work task in between the play stuff and with continous encouragement kids will start making progress. Autistic kids are basically visual learners and language developement can be accomplished with the help of labeled picture symbols. Once a pattern has been set,with working on the child specific objectives, many learn to talk, read and print within a year or two.
The next step is to gradually transfer the childs learning style out of the home....into the school system.
Posted by: drsaimaPosts: 6 :: 20-05-2005 :: | Reply to this Message
Re: Autism awareness
If anyone wants to know more about the program plans for the autistic kids, please check out the website www.intensivesolutions.org and related links on it. If you have a general question about autism, please do not hesitate to send me an email and I will be happy to respond to the best of my knowledge. If you have a specific case related question or want to refer a concerned parent to me ( only for Pakistani Parents ), the website is www.autism-pakistan.org .This service is free of charge.
A Hopkins medical student wants to visit Pakistan in July for an autism related public health study. She is looking for some contacts and information to begin that study. Any suggestions or conacts to help her will that would be appreciated.
Posted by: drsaimaPosts: 6 :: 27-05-2005 :: | Reply to this Message
Re: Autism awareness
There is a a support group the autism meetup group for pakistan at www.autism.meetup.com/77 start by Miss Saima. I hope this would be a good help to everybody.
Posted by: docosamaPosts: 333 :: 21-06-2005 :: | Reply to this Message