An autistic child may have trouble interacting with others or dislike it altogether. Autistic children may also engage in repetitive behaviors, have difficulty sleeping , or compulsively eat nonfood items. They may find it hard to thrive without a structured environment or consistent routine.
If your child is autistic, you may have to work closely with their teachers to ensure they succeed in the classroom. Many resources are available to help autistic children as well as their loved ones. Local support groups can be found through the national nonprofit the Autism Society of America. Autistic children may find that certain exercises can help in easing frustrations and promoting overall well-being. Any type of exercise that your child enjoys can be beneficial.
Walking and simply having fun on the playground are both ideal. Swimming and other in-water activities can serve as both exercise and a sensory play activity. Sensory play activities can help autistic people who may have trouble processing signals from their senses. Sometimes contact sports can be difficult for autistic children. You can instead encourage other forms of challenging yet strengthening exercises. Get started with these tips on arm circles, star jumps, and other autism exercises for kids.
The research was based on data from A literature review concluded that the male-to-female ratio for autistic youth was actually closer to 3 to 1. ASD may simply present differently in girls and in women. In comparison to recent decades, ASD is now being tested earlier and more often. This leads to higher reported rates in both boys and girls. Families who have autistic loved ones may be concerned about what life with ASD looks like for an adult.
Some autistic adults go on to live or work independently. Others may require continued aid or support throughout their lives. Each autistic person is different. This is due, in part, to a previous lack of awareness among medical practitioners. Read this article if you suspect you have adult autism. April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. However, many community advocates have rightly called for the need to increase awareness about ASD year-round, not just during 30 select days.
Certain therapies and approaches can work for some people but not others. Parents and caregivers can also have differing opinions on the best way to advocate for an autistic child.
Children with an ADHD diagnosis consistently have issues with fidgeting , concentrating , and maintaining eye contact with others. These symptoms are also seen in some autistic people.
Despite some similarities, ADHD is not considered a spectrum disorder. One major difference between the two is that people with ADHD do not tend to lack socio-communicative skills. If you think your child may be hyperactive , talk with their doctor about possible ADHD testing. Getting a clear diagnosis is essential to ensure that your child is receiving the right support. Explore the relationship between autism and ADHD. The most effective therapies involve early and intensive behavioral support.
The earlier a child is enrolled in these programs, the better their outlook will be. Remember, ASD is complex. It takes time for an autistic person — whether a child or adult — to find the support program best suited for them. There are signs of autism in babies. Recognizing them is important because early intervention is key to helping autistic children succeed. We detail…. If your 3-year-old exhibits certain behaviors, such as an aversion to touch or eye contact, or if they have delayed speech or motor skills, you should….
Discover what it means, how different autism levels are treated, and more. Asperger's treatment can help children make social connections, achieve their potential, and lead a productive life. The earlier a child begins…. However, boys are significantly more likely to develop ASD than girls. Even as infants, children with ASD may seem different, especially when compared to other children their own age.
They may become overly focused on certain objects, rarely make eye contact, and fail to engage in typical babbling with their parents. In other cases, children may develop normally until the second or even third year of life, but then start to withdraw and become indifferent to social engagement.
The severity of ASD can vary greatly and is based on the degree to which social communication, insistence of sameness of activities and surroundings, and repetitive patterns of behavior affect the daily functioning of the individual.
Social impairment and communication difficulties Many people with ASD find social interactions difficult. The mutual give-and-take nature of typical communication and interaction is often particularly challenging.
Children with ASD may fail to respond to their names, avoid eye contact with other people, and only interact with others to achieve specific goals. Often children with ASD do not understand how to play or engage with other children and may prefer to be alone. People with ASD may have very different verbal abilities ranging from no speech at all to speech that is fluent, but awkward and inappropriate.
Some children with ASD may have delayed speech and language skills, may repeat phrases, and give unrelated answers to questions. In addition, people with ASD can have a hard time using and understanding non-verbal cues such as gestures, body language, or tone of voice. For example, young children with ASD might not understand what it means to wave goodbye. People with ASD may also speak in flat, robot-like or a sing-song voice about a narrow range of favorite topics, with little regard for the interests of the person to whom they are speaking.
Repetitive and characteristic behaviors Many children with ASD engage in repetitive movements or unusual behaviors such as flapping their arms, rocking from side to side, or twirling. They may become preoccupied with parts of objects like the wheels on a toy truck. Children may also become obsessively interested in a particular topic such as airplanes or memorizing train schedules. Many people with ASD seem to thrive so much on routine that changes to the daily patterns of life — like an unexpected stop on the way home from school — can be very challenging.
Some children may even get angry or have emotional outbursts, especially when placed in a new or overly stimulating environment. Certain known genetic disorders are associated with an increased risk for autism, including Fragile X syndrome which causes intellectual disability and tuberous sclerosis which causes benign tumors to grow in the brain and other vital organs — each of which results from a mutation in a single, but different, gene.
Recently, researchers have discovered other genetic mutations in children diagnosed with autism, including some that have not yet been designated as named syndromes. While each of these disorders is rare, in aggregate, they may account for 20 percent or more of all autism cases.
People with ASD also have a higher than average risk of having epilepsy. Children whose language skills regress early in life — before age 3 — appear to have a risk of developing epilepsy or seizure-like brain activity. About 20 to 30 percent of children with ASD develop epilepsy by the time they reach adulthood.
Additionally, people with both ASD and intellectual disability have the greatest risk of developing seizure disorder. ASD symptoms can vary greatly from person to person depending on the severity of the disorder. Symptoms may even go unrecognized for young children who have mild ASD or less debilitating handicaps.
Autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed by clinicians based on symptoms, signs, and testing according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-V, a guide created by the American Psychiatric Association used to diagnose mental disorders.
Children should be screened for developmental delays during periodic checkups and specifically for autism at and month well-child visits. If screening instruments indicate the possibility of ASD, a more comprehensive evaluation is usually indicated. A comprehensive evaluation requires a multidisciplinary team, including a psychologist, neurologist, psychiatrist, speech therapist, and other professionals who diagnose and treat children with ASD.
The team members will conduct a thorough neurological assessment and in-depth cognitive and language testing. Because hearing problems can cause behaviors that could be mistaken for ASD, children with delayed speech development should also have their hearing tested. Scientists believe that both genetics and environment likely play a role in ASD. There is great concern that rates of autism have been increasing in recent decades without full explanation as to why.
To date, no study has been able to examine the thousands of people necessary to identify with accuracy all of the small mutations that might lead to autism. However, with genetic technologies improving at an astronomical pace, as well as global scientific cooperation that will lead to large numbers of people being studied, major advances in the understanding of the causes of autism are likely in the very near future.
This refers to differences in genes that are also found in many individuals who do not have autism and which by themselves are not sufficient to lead to autism. However, when multiple genetic risk factors are found in the same person, they combine to have a major effect on how the brain develops.
Most often, the egg and sperm that create a baby contain genetic material that is present in the mother and father, respectively. However, in rare cases, the egg and sperm may contain genetic material that is not found in either parent. There is now good evidence that some people with autism may have inherited de novo genetic mutations that have an effect on brain development. Recognition has grown over the past decade that aspects of our environment may also contribute to autism.
However, despite substantial research, no one environmental factor has yet been found to be a definite cause of autism. The most widely used research technique to examine environmental risk factors for autism is epidemiology, which examines how often, and why, diseases occur in different groups of people.
Several environmental factors during prenatal life have been linked with autism. Bacterial or viral infections in the mother during pregnancy have been found to slightly increase the risk of autism in the offspring. This could be due to the passage of harmful infectious organisms from the mother to the fetus through the placenta, or because the immune response of the mother may be detrimental to the developing brain of the fetus.
Other factors in the mother that may be related to offspring autism include a folic acid deficiency at the time of conception, the presence of gestational diabetes and the use of certain antidepressants during pregnancy, but no conclusive evidence exists for any of these links. Being an older parent, particularly an older father, is also thought to increase the risk of having a child with autism.
As males get older, the number of sperm that contain de novo genetic mutations increases. Some of the de novo genetic mutations will have minimal or no effect on the resulting baby, but some mutations can lead to the brain developing differently. Several studies have found that fathers who are over 50 at the time of conception have a greater chance of passing on de novo mutations and also a greater risk of having a child with autism.
An obvious, but very important, observation is that not all people who are exposed to these factors are diagnosed with autism. One possible explanation for this is a phenomenon called gene-environment interaction, which is when the genetic make-up of two different people leads them to respond differently to an environmental factor.
For a considerable time scientists were searching for one clear brain difference that may lead to autistic behaviours. However, this hope has yet to be fulfilled, with few studies identifying brain characteristics that are shared by different individuals diagnosed with autism.
This may be a further indication that autism has many different causes, but it may also be a reflection of the difficulties in studying the brain. Currently, scientists use a variety of clever techniques to understand the structure and function of the brain, such as magnetic fields, X-rays and radioactive chemicals. As ingenious as these methods are, they are unable to provide a full measure of the tremendous complexity of how the brain operates.
It is also unlikely that autism affects just one area of the brain alone. The complex behaviours of individuals with autism, which include cognitive, language and sensory difficulties, make it difficult to pinpoint just one brain region that may be affected. Nevertheless, some promising leads have shown how different brain pathways may lead to autistic behaviours.
There is increasing evidence that differences in brain development may begin prenatally in some individuals with autism. Several studies of prenatal ultrasound measurements have found evidence for differences in the growth patterns of the brain in foetuses later diagnosed with autism. Another research technique has been to dissect the brains of individuals with autism who have prematurely died, so-called post-mortem studies. A recent study that examined the brains of 11 autistic individuals at the microscopic level found changes in the structure and organisation of the brain cells that form during foetal life, indicating differences in brain development that begin very soon after conception.
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