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THE CAUSES AND TREATMENT OF AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS 7

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders involving difficulties with socialization, communication, and repetition. The precise causes of ASD is unknown but the theory is that there are genetic, environmental, and neurological contributing factors. Scientists don’t know what causes the majority of autism spectrum disorders. Still, they have shown that genes combined with features of a person’s environment may affect development that may produce ASD. Some children manifest early symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, including making fewer eye movements, not making eye contact with anyone, not saying their names, or being indifferent to caregivers. Other children grow fine for the first few months or years of life but suddenly become restless or belligerent or lose pre-learned language skills. These typically appear by 2 years of age.
All children with autism spectrum disorder will most likely exhibit their own pattern of behaviors and spectrum from low functioning to high functioning.
Some autistic children are incapable of learning and some exhibit signs of below-average intelligence. Other children with the disorder are mild to moderately intelligent they are quick learners but struggle to communicate and put their learning into practice in everyday life and social settings.
In addition, since every child is unique and experiences a different blend of symptoms, severity can sometimes be difficult to pin down. It depends mostly on the severity of impairment and its effect on function.The child or adult with autism spectrum disorder may lack social skills and communication skills, The child/adult might not say his name or does not sometimes seem to hear you.
At times they cannot stand being cuddled, held, or even touched and will prefer to play by themselves, wanting to be in their own space. Children and adults with ASD have bad eye contact and faces not drawn out, cannot or do not speak or speak slowly, or forget words or sentences previously spoken. They can talk with an abnormal tone or tempo, singsong voice, or robot voice.

Children or adults might utter and say words or phrases over and over again but never know how to use them, do not seem to know how to ask simple questions or follow simple directions, fail to express feelings or thoughts, and are seemingly unaware of others’ emotions. Some may misunderstand a social situation by becoming passive-aggressive, or aggressive They might also be unable to make sense of nonverbal expressions for example other people’s facial expressions, body postures, or vocal tone. An autistic child or adult might have few repetitive movements, for example, rocking, spinning, or fluttering hands. Might engage in self-injury activities like biting, banging their head or even pulling their hair. Develops routines or rituals, and is upset by even the smallest change.
Has coordination or weird movements, clumsiness, walking on tiptoes, and weird, stiff, or hyperbolic body language.
Fascinated with aspects of an object, for example, the spinning wheels of a toy car, but doesn’t know what the object’s purpose or function is.
Is hypersensitive to light, sound, or touch, but oblivious to pain or heat.
Do not play imitative, pretend play.
Obsessively attends to something or someone in abnormal intensity or concentration.
Does not want some food types, or only eats a certain amount of foods, or will not eat something with the texture.
And some autistic children mature in a way that makes them more socially involved, and less behaviorally disrupted. Some of them, often the least severe, eventually have ‘normal’ or near-normal lives. Others still struggle with language or social interaction, however, and the teenage years can be full of more serious behavioral and emotional issues.

Perhaps one of the biggest disputes in autism spectrum disorder concerns whether there’s a connection between the condition and childhood vaccinations. Yet there has never been a solid study linking autism spectrum disorder to a vaccine. Indeed, the study that set off the controversy years ago was withdrawn because of bad design and unreliable research design. If you don’t get the childhood vaccines, your kid and others will be at risk of contracting and spreading life-threatening diseases such as whooping cough, pertussis, measles, or mumps.
And there are more children with autism spectrum disorder not sure if it’s because they’re better and more readily identified and reported, or because there are more cases, or both. Autism spectrum disorder strikes all children, regardless of their race or nationality, but some children are more susceptible than others such as your child’s age, genetic background, and babies who are born premature. Other conditions could connect a child with ASD.

There are many treatments for autism spectrum disorder here are some ways to treat a child or an adult with ASD. Here are some of the treatments available one of them is Applied behavior analysis (ABA), a psychologically based approach that involves repeatedly shifting behavior by making the positive and inhibiting the negative. Further, ABA teaches skills, and the skills can be put to use in new situations. Speech therapy also aids in part because the ASD patient lacks social communication, speech therapy is an essential part of the process. A Licensed Speech-language Pathologist (SLP) will assist a child to speak better to express what they need or want. It’s often in a collaboration between teachers, supports, families, and the child’s peers that speech therapy succeeds.
If a child can’t communicate verbally, and they are nonverbal, then gesture, sign language, and picture communication programs can be useful resources to get them better at communicating.
It is common to receive occupational therapy for sensory integration problems in ASD. It’s also employed to train fine motor life skills like dressing, utensil use, cutting with scissors, and writing. Children and adults with ASD may also benefit from Occupational Therapy which aims to enhance quality of life and participation in activities of daily living.

Every OT program is a customized evaluation of the person. The emphasis in early ASD OT is on sensory integration and sensorimotor dysfunction. In older children, OT is usually focused on socialization and increased independence.

Other treatments for ASD may also include medication,

There’s no cure for autism spectrum disorder or any of its symptoms, currently. Yet medications can manage some symptoms of ASD, and especially certain behaviors. Practitioners might administer drugs to manage behavior, for example, in order to minimize self-harm or violence. Reducing a symptom frees up the autistic individual for other activities such as learning and communication. They’ve discovered that drugs work best in combination with behavioral interventions.
Most medicines used to ameliorate autism’s debilitating symptoms today are “off label,” meaning they are FDA-approved for another, sometimes related disorder, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), sleep problems or depression. That sort of off-label use is prevalent in almost every field of medicine, and it’s typically for the relief of great pain when we lack large and specific studies.

A case in point in autism would be a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as fluoxetine. A few of these drugs are approved by the FDA to treat anxiety disorders and depression, in children as well as adults. Although they’re still awaiting big clinical trials, parents and clinicians have discovered that they can ease social concerns in some autistic individuals. But it’s been hard to say which drug in this class would bring the biggest impact on any particular autistic patient. And the same goes for how much to take.

We could take a different example, the FDA-approved medication naltrexone for alcohol and opioid addiction. It makes disabling repetitive and self-harming behaviors easier in some children and adults with autism.
These drugs do not cure everybody, and all drugs are dangerous. And, as mentioned earlier, different people respond to medications differently. Second, an individual’s response to a drug can alter over time, even if the dosage is not adjusted. In the long run, some of us become tolerant when the drug stops working or sensitized when the side effects get worse to drugs. Autism is a lifetime disability and while there is no single solution to ASD, early intervention and a mix of therapies can do much to help autistic people. They’re continually being researched for more insight into the causes and for more effective cures.