The United Nations General Assembly unanimously declared 2 April as World Autism Awareness Day (A/RES/62/139) and was adopted on December 18 of 2007 that every 2 April is World Autism Awareness Day, to highlight the need to help improve the quality of life of those with autism so they can lead full and meaningful lives as an integral part of society. The notion of autism as a spectrum was developed in 2013 by the American Psychiatric Association.
Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder, refers to a range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, Repetitive behaviours, Speech and nonverbal communication, as well as by unique strengths and differences example include Repetitive behaviours like hand-flapping, rocking, jumping or twirling, constant moving and “hyper” behaviour.
The theme for this year is not yet known!
The term “spectrum” reflects the wide variation in challenges and strengths possessed by each person with autism.
This year in RADA, we shall be raising awareness, increase knowledge and understanding of autism
1 Autism is a non-communicable disease.
2 It is important to understand the risk factors and prevention of Autism.
There are 4 main sub-types of autism recognized within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
1 Autistic Disorder or Autism or Childhood autism: People living with this condition always have language delay, intellectual disability, communication challenges and unusual behaviour.
2 Asperger Syndrome: people with this condition usually have milder symptoms of autistic disorder and might have social challenges and unusual behaviour. They typically do not have problems with language or intellectual disability.
3 Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (CDD): these children develop normally for at least two years and then lose some or most of their communication skills.
4 Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD): is atypical autism.
People with autism may have problems with social, emotional, and communication skills. They might repeat certain behaviour and might not want change in their daily activities. They have different ways of learning, paying attention, or reacting to things. It begins at early childhood and lasts throughout a person’s life. They repeat actions over and over again and have unusual reactions that is they don’t pay attention to the way things smell, taste, look, feel or sound.
There’s no cause of autism. Research suggests that autism develops from a combination of genetic and non-genetic, or environmental, influences and these influences appear to increase the risk that a child will develop autism.
1 Genetic risk factor: changes in the genes increase the risk that a child will develop autism even if a parent is carrying one or more of these gene changes, they may get passed to the child (even if the parent doesn’t have autism).
2 Environmental risk factorfactors:
certain environmental influences may further increase or reduce autism in
people who are genetically predisposed to the disorder. Importantly, the
increase or decrease in risk appears to be small for anyone with these risk
factors;
- Advanced parent age
- Pregnancy and birth complications such as multiple pregnancies (twin, triplet), low birth weight.
- Use of anti-seizure drugs during pregnancy.
- Maternal metabolic conditions such as diabetes, obesity and use of alcohol.
Diagnosis of Autism:Autism cannot be diagnosed since there is no medical test to diagnose the disorders. Doctors look at the child behavior and develop a diagnosis. Sometimes it can be detected at 18 months or younger. By age 2, a diagnosis by an experienced professional can be considered very reliable and it takes two steps;
- Developmental Screening.
- Comprehensive Diagnostic Evaluation.
The treatments of autism are ;
1 Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA): is by breaking down skills like communication and cognitive skills into smaller and simpler tasks. The tasks are then taught in a highly structured way.
2 Discrete Trial Training (DTT): is a teaching style that uses a series of trials and efforts to teach each step of a desire behavior or response.
3 Speech and Language Therapy (SLT): it aims at improving communication and language skills and it will help improve their ability to interact with others socially.
Prevention: We need to do the following to prevent autism
1 Avoid taking any drugs during pregnancy unless the doctor specifically prescribes them.
2 Avoid drinking alcoholic beverages of any kind during pregnancy.
3 Following delivery, there are certain measures that may be helpful in preventing autism. One is early diagnosis and treatment of Phenylketonuria (PKU), which is a hereditary disease that is cause by liver enzyme required to digest the enzyme Phenylalanine. Similarly, early diagnosis and treatment of celiac disease may reduce the risk of a child having autism.
Article by ATUNEK JULIUS ESENEK
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