Autism

It depends on what therapy you mean. Some effective therapies include speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy and applied behavior analysis.

In the 1800s, the first special education programs were started. These weren't specifically aimed at autism (since autism wasn't identified as a distinct diagnosis), but certainly included some autistic students. Victor, the Wild Boy of Aveyron, who some historians suspect was actually an abandoned autistic child, received extensive education from Itard, one of the early names in special education.

Speech therapy can help a child learn to use language effectively. Some children remain nonverbal but are able to learn to use sign language or picture exchange communication. Some nonverbal adults speak with communication devices. The first book on speech disorder was written in 1882 by Samual Potter, and included several recommendations for treatment of various conditions.

Occupational therapy has apparently been around since the 1700s. Today, it is used for autism to help with the patient's fine motor control, the ability to control the physiologic movements of the body. This helps with an autistic person's self stimulatory behaviors and sensory seeking behaviors, and can also strengthen some of the muscles used when implementing precise tasks such as, say, properly holding a pen.

Physical therapy has been around about as long as medicine. It is used when a patient suffers an injury, but can be used to help an autistic person with what is referred to as gross motor control, the larger, more basic movements of the body, like walking. Some people with autism may have poor muscle tone or other motor problems. Physical therapy can help them with this.

Applied behavioral analysis evolved from research by individuals such as John B Watson and BF Skinner during the early 1900s. In the 1960s, Lovaas began using ABA in the treatment of autism, claiming in a landmark study that 47% of children treated with ABA were 'indinstinguishable from their peers'. This finding has never been replicated, but ABA has been shown to be a highly effective educational technique for autism. The basis for this therapy is the concept that systematic reinforcement of desired behaviors will make them more frequent.

Only in recent years have any of the above therapies been considered medically necessary and been therefore covered by medical insurance. Some insurance plans do not cover any autism therapies what-so-ever. Some plans will not cover therapies they deem to be educational, like occupational, physical and speech therapies, which all involve "learning" to do things differently. But all of the above have been shown to be effective.

There is also controversy regarding ethical concerns of autism treatment. While no one can argue that it's not a good thing to help a child gain important skills, many autistic self-advocates argue that therapies aimed at changing autistic behavior such as avoidance of eye contact and hand-flapping are unethical, since this behavior serves a purpose for the child and is not harmful to themselves or others. They contend that rather than seeking to teach an autistic child to behave normally, therapies should focus on helping the child function well in their own autistic way.

yes

Absolutely not, autism is a neuro-biological disorder that a person is born with. It is a neurological difference, meaning those born with autism, have brains that function differently that those who do not have autism. You cannot "catch" autism from others.

Hypotonia is a term describing the condition of decreased muscle tone, also known as floppy infant syndrome. Some people with Asperger's Syndrome or autism have hypotonia. It is common for people with Asperger's Syndrome and autism to have some motor control or muscular difficulties, but not necessarily hypotonia. There are many conditions that can co-occur with hypotonia, such as Down syndrome, muscular dystrophy, and cerebral palsy.

ANSWER: PDD or Pervasive Developmental Disorder is actually a bit of a misnomer. Many doctors who would not like to commit to giving a diagnosis of Autism will tell the parents that their child has PDD or PDD NOS. ANSWER: PDD-NOS stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. PDD is another name for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Some doctors use PDD when they mean PDD-NOS. Some doctors use PDD as what it is - a set of disorders. PDD is not a diagnosis; it is a description of a category of developmental disorders. PDD-NOS is a diagnosis. It describes a condition that has the characteristics of a pervasive developmental disorder, but does not fit the criteria for one of the other PDDs.

Sometimes, doctors will use the diagnosis of PDD-NOS when it is apparent that the child has a pervasive developmental disorder, but the exact one cannot yet be determined - perhaps because the child is too young to identify certain symptoms, or the disorder is not severe enough to differentiate from the others yet, or comorbid conditions are making it difficult to differentiate among the disorders. Some doctors prefer not to give a diagnosis of autism until they feel absolutely sure that it is autism, so they diagnose the child with PDD-NOS until they are certain.

The 'Jumping Frenchman of Maine disorder', is a disease first noted amoungst French Canadian Lumberjacks, the symptoms are rather odd, they include: Fufilling requests that are given randomly, and poor or incorrect reflexes.

Not directly. There is a higher rate of suicide among teens with Asperger's Syndrome than among neurotypical teens. During the years that many teens feel peer pressure and that they don't belong, it is often worse for those with Asperger's Syndrome.

Also, people with Asperger's Syndrome sometimes engage in self-harming activities such as banging one's head against the wall. Self-harm is not the goal, but it can happen. No. It is not a disease. It is a neurological disorder. People with Asperger's syndrome have difficulty with social interaction, communication and can have obsessions/compulsions about certain objects or activities. People with Asperger's can be extremely intelligent, and generally are high-functioning.

By entertain, I assume that it is NOT to keep him busy so that you can do something else. I recommend learning "Floor Time" - a good overview of floortime: http://www.floortime.org/faqs.php?faqid=4 Not only will the child be entertained, but will be interacting with you, and learning at the same time. A more scientific resource: http://www.stanleygreenspan.com/

No.

Autistic people do not think like animals. It is offensive to suggest that Autistic people (not 'people with autism') think like animals, we think like people because we are people.

Of course! There's someone out there for everyone. I know it's hard but just try to talk to people, maybe find a male adult with a mild form of autism. I assure you, there IS someone out there for everyone. You have nothing to worry about.

because i have a brother who is with autism. would you kill him? ask that to your self. for us we treat him like he is normal. we love him alot.

No idea. I wasn't diagnosed with autism until I was 9. I'm 12, now. Because it's not something you can tell until they are growing up and beginning to communicate with people. Babies don't talk or show many emotions. There's 2 types of Autism - one where the child is born autistic and the other is late onset autism. Early onset (infantile) autism is usually not diagnosed until age 2 or 3, but a few symptoms can be observed at age 1. Late onset autism usually does not show symptoms until after age 3. (Distinguishing between these two types of autism is more an issue of when the child was diagnosed, rather than when autism occurred.)

The diagnostic criteria includes impaired social functioning and delayed language development, which are easier to detect between ages 1 1/2 and 3 than as a baby. Some researchers are investigating ways to diagnose autism at age 1 or earlier. One of these methods involves analyzing the child's eye contact.

I am a mother of a 4 year old who is diagnosed with mild autism. Hannah was a normal and happy baby. She hit every major milestone except speech. When she was about 18 months old I noticed that she only spoke 5 "true words" and the rest was babble. I took her to an ears, nose and throat doctor to get her hearing checked since she did have reoccurring ear infections for the 1st year of her life. The doctor did a hearing test and to my surprise it came back normal. The ENT doctor referred us to a speech language pathologist who did an assessment on her. The SLP said that her mental level was that of a 10 month old and her speech was that of a 9 month old. She diagnosed Hannah as having Symbolic Dysfunction Disorder. Hannah continued Speech therapy but I wanted to know why Hannah had this so I took her to see a pediatric neurologist who did a complete workup including an EEG and he diagnosed her with being Mildly Autistic. Today Hannah attends Special-Education Pre-School at the recommendation of her neurologist and also attends speech and occupational therapy. Actually, some babies avoid eye contacts, that is an early sign of autism. Autism cannot be diagnosed before two years old when the symptoms are not clear.

A child might have a condition in addition to autism, such as ADHD. The ADHD symptoms could be so significant that the autism symptoms seem minor or are ones that can be explained by having ADHD. In this case, the person might not have seemed to have symptoms of autism as a baby, although he or she did.

A child might have mild symptoms of autism. This child might be described as a difficult or sensitive baby, but it might not seem that the child has the symptoms conventionally associated with autism. Again, it might seem as if the child did not have symptoms as a baby.

A child with autism might not be in situations that trigger the symptoms of autism until he or she enters school - or is exposed to other unfamiliar people and places. The symptoms of autism might never happen at home with family. In this case, the child might not have shown any distinguishing symptoms of autism as a baby.

In one case that was described to me, the child was the parents' first child, so the parents did not realize the behaviors exhibited by the child were atypical, so they never mentioned them to the pediatrician. The pediatrician did not ask questions specific enough to realize there might be a problem. The child seemed slow to develop in some ways, but faster in some, and the parents thought it was all within the range of expected development, so it was not until the child was older that they realized something was wrong.

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no, he wasn't.

yes.

yes , autism is caused by a dominant gene

academic speech

it makes emotions in their head like:

heat

movement

colour

Yes, an 11 year old is still developing and that is perfectly normal.

Yes, they can do so quite easily, especially when they know what their condition is and what problems it may cause, as well as how they can best overcome those problems.

Some with severe cases of Asperger's Syndrome cannot function in normal society.

Short answer: No, being able to talk does not mean you have Asperger's Syndrome instead of autism.

With autism there is a speech delay in children. Aspergers there is generally no speech delay but alot of autism traits and social impairments. As a person gets older, social skills can be figured out however it's not easy nor does it mean everything is fine once learned because often times people will criticize and downplay a person with asperger's autistic traits if the person can speak and come across as eccentric. Other people don't generally understand and will try to push the person into doing tasks that are not so stressful to their own minds and then the person gets upset if the aspie freaks out or gets bent out of shape meanwhile claiming the person is just fabricating their symptoms to get out of it or just using an excuse or will just grow out of it.

So for people with autism on any part of the spectrum it's always damned if you do and damned if you don't.

There are also people with autism starting off as children who developed adequate verbal skills that get the same treatment as adults.

Some people who are considered aspergers as adults were once autistic as children but developed skills however still have many of the autistic symptoms such as facial blindness, getting really stressed out with multitasking, meltdowns (sometimes alone away from others), disoriented feeling in new environments and routine changes can provoke feelings of chaos.

Because autism is brought up in the media with only certain elements and people splashed across the screen as low intelligence then when people find out a person who is really intelligent could have autism they dismiss it and then try to drag the person out to do their favorite routines and hobbies involving multi-tasking and social groups only to find the person acting strange and then accusing the person of just being difficult.

It's highly annoying to be around others when you have autism unless they understand that your issues are real. Just because you are able to overcome some aspects of autism doesn't mean you are no longer autistic. You've just managed to develop outer coping strategies to calm yourself so you don't have meltdowns in front of others.

This is one of the main reasons why I don't care much for having friends. They always want you to do things for them that are no benefit to you and then they treat you as though you just have to get used to it when you've been doing the same thing that you have difficulties with for over 20 years and then they have the nerve to minimize your struggles and treat you as though it's just all in your head.

Autism is a brain developmental disorder with a certain degree of behavioural and/or coordination difficulty. A specific questionnaire, the 'Modified Checklist of Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT), or its improved version, M-CHAT-R or M-CHAT-R/F, are used to evaluate the possibility of the disorder.

However, the latest research, done by Dr. Sophie Molholm and her research colleagues (at Yeshiva's Albert Einstein College of Medicine), used electroencephalogram (EEG) to compare the children's responses to specific stimulations. By measuring and comparing the responsive brainwaves, they can determine whether and to what degree is a child affected. This method is believed to be more accurate and, very importantly, can make a much earlier diagnosis, enabling earlier treatment.

Tak.

No, zoning out isn't a stimm. Stimming refers to self-stimulation, usually as a form of focused sensory input to focus on in order to take focus away from other external sensory input. Stimming includes behaviour such as rocking, tapping, flapping, etc. - there is no sensory input when zoning out.