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What is autism?
Put simply it
is developmental delay of a part of the brain which deals
with communication and social interaction skills. Autistic
children appear to be in a world of their own, paying little
or no attention to others around them and providing their
own stimuli. Classic signs of an autistic child are poor eye
contact, poor speech and language skills, obsessive and repetitive
behaviours, self rocking, spinning objects, tapping, (repetitive
motions which provide visual stimulation), head banging, seemingly
unnecessary tantrums (to us). These are just the most obvious
signs, however the list goes on and every child has their
different traits. There are many web sites which provide in
depth information on this subject, we have included the ones
we found most useful in the related
links page, including this "Overview of
Autism, by
Stephen M. Edelson, Ph.D. [click here]
There are many
theories on the possible causes of autism, among them are
the MMR vaccine, mercury poisoning from the preservatives
used for child vaccinations, excessive emotional stress while
the mother is pregnant with the child, genetic factors which
carry through generations, and one of the latest findings
that the brain develops too fast and too large while the fetus
is in the womb. This for us was an interesting finding as
we were told by the pediatrician on her last ultra scan that
she was going to be a clever girl as she had quite a large
brain! "interesting"... Although there are many
theories, they still don't know conclusively what causes autism
or related disorders. From all I have read, heard about and
seen, my personal opinion is that it may be a genetic
trait that is carried through generations, but with certain
triggers it shows up on some children as autism or related
disorders. By triggers I mean things like the MMR viruses,
or the Mercury poisoning, or the damage caused by the brain
growing too large, hence not all children who have vaccines
etc. show signs of autism! Mind you this is merely my
opinion only.
Is there a cure?
According to the experts - NO.
However there
are some pretty amazing success stories out there. One of
the more notable ones being the son of a couple in Massachusetts
who was diagnosed as severe autistic, his parents were advised
to institutionalise him but they refused and they went on
to develop their own program to teach an apparently un-teachable,
unreachable child. He now has a near genius IQ, has graduated
from university, is a highly verbal and social person, and
now teaches other autistic children and their parents at the
Autism Treatment Center
of America. His name is Raun Kaufman, his parents run
the Option Institute and
the Son-Rise program.
The core of their success would seem to be an extremely positive
attitude, unconditional love, endless hours of tuition and
therapy and believing in yourself. This
is just one of many programs that are available, including
the Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), Giant Steps and more.
They all seem to focus on early intervention and getting down
to the child's level in order to be able to reach them.
We believe (again
this is only our opinion and beliefs)that although the
child has part of the brain undeveloped that deals with the
skills they lack, that it is possible to develop another part
of the brain to take over those functions, if they are taught
early enough. Because of their state it is important to get
through to them, in order to do this they must be fully accepted
and loved unconditionally and many many hours spent developing
that part of the brain which wasn't initially designed for
those skills. They say that humans only use a small percentage
of their brains capacity. If so, and judging from others success
stories it appears that it is possible, and that they may
even reach limits far beyond the norm.
"there is
no limit to what we can acheive - if we beleive"
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