What Are Some Mild Autism Treatments?

The symptoms of mild autism are far less severe than those associated with more severe forms of this condition. Unfortunately, this will often result in many children being undiagnosed for several years, and the treatment process being delayed. In many cases of children having mild autism, if they perform a sequence of different therapies and treatments they can recover.

Individuals with a mild form of autism will often develop very well and have a normal speaking ability. Regular therapy at a young age can have incredible results, and can help to cure the child of all signs of autism. Treatments will typically fall into two different categories, and will need to be tailor made to the individual child.

Every single autism case is unique; therefore, the child will need to be assessed before treatment should begin. Both educational and medical treatments can be successful, depending on the child and how mild the autism symptoms are. Although drugs are diagnosed for some forms of autism, many people prefer to use other methods and treatments. Speech therapy, physical therapy and animal assisted therapy, are all extremely popular.

Speech therapy is one of the most common treatments available and many children with mild autism will need to perform this. Children with mild autism will often develop their speech differently, and their necessary communication skills may be lacking. Therefore, spending the time to re-educate the child and encourage them to speak appropriately is essential. If the child is struggling to communicate correctly, other methods such as picture exchange may be used. Read the rest of this entry »

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What Is Autism? An Introduction to the Basics of Autism

Autism is a brain disorder which affects three main areas of human development: speech, communication, and social interaction. It is a spectrum disorder, meaning that two people with autism may have very different symptoms or characteristics.

Children have autism may have the following characteristics in their behaviors and may vary greatly in the degrees of severity.

- Spin objects or self
- Sustained unusual or repetitive play
- Little, avoid or no eye contact
- Prefer to be alone
- Delay in language development
- Insistence on sameness
- Uneven physical skills
- Laugh, cry, or show distress for unknown reasons
- Over-active or under-active
- Difficult to express needs, use gestures instead of speaking
- Repeat words or phrases in meaningless way
- Inappropriate attachment to objects
- Reject or avoid personal touch such as holding or hugging
- Unresponsive to normal teaching methods
- Oversensitivity or under-sensitivity to pain
- Failure to develop peer relationships

There is no medical test for autism. An autism diagnosis must be carried out by a team of professionals through observation and testing of the child. Usually, this can be diagnosed when the child is 2 -3 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

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Alternative Treatments for Children With Autism

(For easier reading and flow, I have used he/him/his throughout this article. Obviously these words are interchangeable with she/her)

“That alternative treatment is unproven by medical science. Don’t waste your money. Wait until the research has been done and published in peer-reviewed medical journals.” That’s easy for you say…you don’t have to live with a child with autism day after day, and see him wasting away in the face of his hidden potential. A child who held the promise of being a normal, intelligent child, who is now trapped under the mask of autism. I am talking about the child with autism who can’t communicate. He bites his fingers, bangs his head against the wall, huddles in the corner of his bedroom covering his head with a blanket and moans, as he tries to shut out frustrating environmental sounds, sights and smells that he can’t make sense of, or internal sensations and pain that he can’t communicate. If you try to comfort him, he becomes aggressive. You don’t know what to do. You can only watch as the tears run down your face.

Being a parent of a child with autism makes you feel every emotion possible. It’s frightening, disappointing, lonely, and frustrating. You feel angry, trapped, and financially drained. But sometimes it’s humorous, enlightening and educational. And there are rare moments when you feel absolutely joyous because he shows you a skill that you never knew he had. You didn’t teach it to him. It was there all the time – trapped. But because of a so-called unproven treatment, the skill emerged. And you are one step closer to knowing your child.

Interventions can be educational, behavioural, therapeutic, psychopharmacological, and/or bio-medical. A multi-treatment approach is most likely to reap the best results over time – a long time. But who can afford all of it and where do you start? Read the rest of this entry »

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