Autism
Autism; a disorder that people are starting to realize is pretty common. Very little is actually known about autism and the reasons behind its crippling life-long effects. With the number of diagnosed autism patients is rising at an unbelievable pace, researchers are doing all they can to discover a way to bring the patients who seem to be lost "in their own world" (Caronna and Tager-Flusberg, 2007) back to reality. The symptoms, therapy of medicine, risk factors, effects on language, and ongoing research will all be talked about in this paper to hopefully inform people and families that are unaware. Autism can be described as a severe developmental disorder that is usually diagnosed before the age of three, and usually involves untreatable mental retardation and communication problems throughout the patient's life. Leading research has concluded that with early diagnosis, the level of severity of the disorder can be decided.
People should be aware of autism's risk factors and symptoms to help detect the disorder early. The numbers of autism cases has been rising primarily due to the discovery that autism can be prevalent even in people who have average IQs and the rates can be as high as 60 per 10,000 (Lindgren, 2009). The people with the largest chances of being born with the disorder are family members of current autism patients; new studies have found that the reoccurrence rate in families can be as high as 10%. This genetic disorder is also 4 times as likely to strike the male population, even though they aren’t exactly sure why. The main symptoms of autism that all researchers agree on are repetitive motor movements and speech, impairments in communication and interaction with others.
Another symptom of autism is attentiveness, which is failing to develop the skill of sharing an experience with a person by following their gaze or look to the object they are pointing to. This skill is adamant to mental development and is developed around the first birthday in life. If we didn’t have early detection, crucial months of development pass without any progress since the child struggles with taking in new information. The child might suffer from a lack of babbling, no motivation to communicate, and strange repetitive noises such as yelling and screeching and not responding to their name.
In fact, autism has a severely debilitating effect on language expression and comprehension. Even patients with high functioning autism (HFA) who have gone through extensive training, still never manage to overcome some factors of communication; primarily pragmatics and prosody. For instance, when compared to normal children in an experiment, autistic children made twice the amount of mistakes regarding which segment of the word to stress (Grossman & Taer-Flusberg, 2008). Even though the pattern of word acquisition is very similar to normal children, the grammar and order of words remains atypical. Current research states that this is most likely caused by the lack of joint attention; making syntax difficult since the two have a positive correlation to each other. While autistic patients can learn many words, they specifically struggle with terms that can have multiple meanings or relate to emotions.
With such serious communication problems, merging with the rest of society is difficult for autistic people. Leading medications are still experimental, but have the possibility to increase quality of life. Obsessive compulsive behaviors can be reduced with clomipramine and hyperactivity can be controlled with neuroleptics (Lindgren, 2009). But currently, the main treatment used is based on different therapy methods. Music therapy is gaining popularity and stimulates social interaction within autistic children by allowing them to listen and play instruments together without having the pressure to form speech (Autism PDD). Motion therapy is another form that is the platform of many other techniques. It involves allowing an
whom they are? My little sister at 18 months was diagnosed with autism. I am 2 years older then her so when she was diagnosed I did not understand why my mom was crying. Growing up, I did not understand why she was considered a freak. Then I finally learned that she was “different” than everybody else. Autism is a neurobehavioral disorder that impairs social interactions, communication skills and developmental language. Autism can range from a handicap that limits normal life to devastating disabilities…
This paper is going to speak about autism and the warning signs. Also you are going to learn about two girls who have autism and how they are coping with this disorder. They are my example children who live with autism everyday and the struggles they face from other peers around them. Autism is not a joke and it is not a scam many children suffer from this disease and studies shows that autism affects boys more than girls within our society. My experience with autism sits very close to home. My 2…
Britney Shirley PSY – 241 TH1 6/29/15 Low Empathy Capacity in Toddlers Could be an Early Sign of Autism Autism is a well-known disorder that impairs a person’s social, verbal and behavior development. In my general psychology class, we briefly went over the Autism disorder and discussed the spectrum of severity. At the mild side of the spectrum the individual might be socially under developed, might not be as verbal as others and may display some unusual behavior. At the severe side of the spectrum…
Angelic Battle Psych 515 April 13, 2013 Dr. Sherri McClurg Film Review Autism is a very critical disorder for children and adults. Autism is a disorder that affects an individual behavior in language, perceptual, and motor development. A person is diagnosed with autism at an early age. “Autism in infancy and childhood was first described by Kanner (1943). It afflicts tens of thousands of American children from all socioeconomic…
Look me in the eye – My life with Asperger’s Author: John Elder Robison Biography of: John Elder Robison Publisher: Crown Publishers Early years: John had a dad that became alcoholic, and a mom that had become ill. His brother Augusten had parents that wanted to be together. John and Augusten only had each other for a while, until John left Augusten when he was only 8. At sixteen, John was a young, undisciplined, unsupervised genius, loose in the world. He was a story teller, but when he grew…
not been looked highly on in my family; it was okay for others to have them, but not us. I had always thought they were very expressive and beautiful. Tattoos tell a person’s life story. My great uncles all have them, but my grandparents, uncle and mom were all pretty against them. Everyone discouraged me to get any because they were permanent, and one day I’d regret them. I can’t speak for the distant future, but as right now I have no regrets getting any. Along with other open minded issues, it…
manages to keep a humorous voice within the story without noticing he is doing so. Right away I could infer that Christopher has autism because of all the clues such as not being able to recognize emotions easily, not understanding jokes easily, and the fact that he doesn’t like to be touched. I think that the fact that the book is from the point of view from someone with autism will make it an interesting and different book. I think that the book is believable because it doesn’t contain anything that…
thoughts/emotions antecedents: alone, watching TV consequences: tactile stimulation antecedents: watching TV, mom busy in the room consequences: attention 8 year old’s wrist biting antecedents: during tooth brushing, sore gums consequences: escape from tooth brushing 18 year old’s binge eating antecedents: alone, sad, negative thinking consequences: relief from negative feeling/thoughts A 6 year old child with autism hand waving antecedents: not engaged in a task or interaction consequences: visual stimulation…
up my new son, Braedyn. The journey to fight for Braedyn was long and hard as the parents were drug addicts and with every “parental right” in the world they were given many opportunities to get it together to get him back. All together between the mom and dad they already had seven kids in the foster system. The fight for my son to be adopted took eight months. Braedyn was the love of my life, everyone’s life to be exact. My life changed so…
Part 1 1. Classical conditioning I have a special ringtone set for my mom and dad. So whenever they call I know that they are calling me because the ringtone is different from everyone else. I set a special ringtone for my parents so that I would always answer their phone calls. US is the phone call, UR is mom, NS is the special ringtone, CS is the special ringtone, and CR mom. 2. Operant conditioning My cousin promised her daughter that if she gets all A’s in her report card they would…