Autistic Children

Autism Spectrum Disorder

    Last year, I went to Banting Selangor because I am joining volunteer for the Community Service Responsibility (CSR) for my organization. During the Community Service Responsibility, what I can see that there are more than one type of disability children, but I am interested with autistic children because some of them can control their emotions. In my observation during the CSR, even though this kid is special, but they had been trained like a normal person and they can do a lot of thing but someone must assist them. 

    Do you know there are parents that questioning why did the child develop autism? It is a spectrum disorders, a spectrum that ranges. For instance, Aiman is 19 years old boy, He quite remarkably gifted in mathematic but then he got difficulty in communication because sometimes he will repeat the same thing. These days, one in 88 children will be diagnosed with autism and the statistic also slightly increase by years.

    As you guys can see, the graph shows that the increase of children that having autism. There are four important things that related with autistic children which are what is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), symptoms, the other conditions of the children and the way to treated. So, my question is do you guys know what is exactly Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?

    Autism Spectrum Disorder also called pervasive developmental disorders that range from more severe to the milder disorder. It also been characterized by problems in social interaction, problem in verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors. Children with this disorder may also show a typical response to sensory experiences (NIMH, 2016). Autism spectrum disorders can often be detected in children as young as 1 to 3 years old age.

    When you guys know what the exactly meaning of Autism Spectrum Disorder, you guys could differentiate the children. For example, you guys could see the differences of children behavior because you guys already aware with definition of autism.

    Now, let us move on to the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder which is one the important things that you guys need to know. There are three symptoms which are social impairment, communication issues and repetitive and stereotyped behaviors.

 

    Firstly, social impairment characterizes by make little eye contact, tend to look, listen less to people in their environment and respond unusually. Secondly, communication issues characterize by fail or slow to respond to their name, learn to communicate using pictures or their own language and repeat words or phrase that they heard. Lastly, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors characterize by fascinating with moving objects or parts of object, have great interest in numbers, symbols or science topics and often do the best with routine in their daily activities and surrounding.

    Next, I already told you guys about the symptoms, now let us go to other points which are the other condition of ASD and how to treat them. So, for your information, autistic children also facing with others condition which are sensory problems, sleep problems, intellectual disability, and seizures. While there is no proven cure yet for ASD, treating them early using school-based program and getting proper medical care can reduce symptoms of ASD and can increase the ability to learn new skills

On the other hand, there are two early intervention which are verbal behavior and pivotal response training. So, what is verbal behavior and pivotal response training? Firstly, verbal behavior is focuses on teaching language that guide children from simple verbal behaviors to more functional communication skills and the second one is pivotal training response that aims to identifying pivotal skills which is self-management.

    Finally, It is a need that we must be aware about Autism which are the definition, symptoms, the others condition and how ASD been treated. If we do not aware about this, what will happened to the children? I will give you choice to think about it.

    Last but not least, I prepared some quotation from Leisa Hammett, a mother to the autism children. “Life is not about counting the losses and the lost expectations but rather swimming with as much grace as can be mustered in the joy of all of it”.