Tuesday, March 27, 2007

For the Love of Reich

Yesterday at CNN's Larry King I saw Bill Cosby, Toni Braxton, and actor Gary Cole talk about Autism. The show featured the challenges of parents with autistic children. They were also throwing statistics that really surprised me, one of the guest said "1 in 150, 1 in 94 boys will be diagnosed with Autism. This is truly a national and a global epidemic. " To my further surprise apparently according to Larry King... "that they aren't teaching it in medical school? " What's going on here? I hope I heard it differently or something. I also learned that early diagnosis is very important so that proper intervention will be given and the child's development will be better.

The following may indicate that a child is suffering from autism according to the Autism Society of the Philippines. If the child exhibits seven or more of these traits a diagnosis of autism should be seriously considered. However the patient should also be given thorough medical, developmental and intelligence tests:

1. Difficulty in mixing with other children.
2. Acts as deaf.
3. Resist learning.
4. No fear of real dangers.
5. Resist change in routine.
6. Indicates needs by gestures.
7. Inappropriate laughing and giggling.
8. Not cuddly.
9. Marked physical overactivity.
10. No eye contact.
11. Inappopriate attachments to objects.
12. Spins objects.
13. Sustained odd play.
14. Standoffish manner.

There are numerous theories as to the specific causes of autism, but they are as yet unproven. But it is classified as a developmental disability that results from a disorder of the human central nervous system. Autism usually manifests itself before the age of three and diagnosis is possible as early as six months. There is a broad array of autism therapies for the development of kids with autism such as; Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), Floortime Therapy, Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Sensory Integration Therapy, Relationship Development Intervention, Verbal Behavior Intervention, and the school-based TEAACH method.

I was not quite surprised when one of the mother interviewed in the Larry King Live show said that....." We're just judged more harshly and more constantly, and expected to do things that no human being should be expected to do." I gues the root cause of this is due to people's lack of awareness about autism. My friend Reich have an online journal of her son Dale's progress with autism. Also, the Autism Society Philippines have a website that can be a good source of information regarding the status of autism in the country.

By the way, Happy Birthday Reich!

1 Comments:

At 1:48 AM, Blogger Reich said...

ngayon ko lang nabasa... maraming salamat po! muah! miss ya!

 

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