HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

With­in our his­to­ry, we can eas­i­ly find those op­por­tu­ni­ties to be in ‘awe’. In­deed, his­to­ry is full of peo­ple who many con­sid­er to be or have been some­where on the autism spec­trum.

Michelan­ge­lo – Sculp­tor, Painter, Ar­chi­tect, Po­et

Wolf­gang Amadeus Mozart – Clas­si­cal Com­pos­er

Sir Isaac New­ton – Math­e­mati­cian, As­tronomer and Physi­cist

Tim Bur­ton – Movie Di­rec­tor

Lewis Car­roll – Au­thor of “Al­ice in Won­der­land”

Though the term "autism" first ap­peared around 1911, very lit­tle was known or med­ical­ly re­searched about autism spec­trum dis­or­der un­til the late 20th cen­tu­ry. Autism is cur­rent­ly de­fined by a cer­tain set of be­hav­iours and is a “spec­trum con­di­tion” that af­fects peo­ple dif­fer­ent­ly and to vary­ing de­grees. How­ev­er, as we learn more about Autism, these de­f­i­n­i­tions evolve.

One thing we know for cer­tain is “Autis­tics are an in­fi­nite spec­trum of pos­si­bil­i­ties.”

Every April, World Autism Month is com­mem­o­rat­ed, be­gin­ning with Unit­ed Na­tions-sanc­tioned World Autism Aware­ness Day on April 2nd. Through­out the month, fo­cus is placed on pro­vid­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to in­crease aware­ness, un­der­stand­ing and ac­cep­tance of per­sons with autism, fos­ter­ing world­wide sup­port.

New dis­cov­er­ies and ad­vance­ments con­tin­ue to be made to­day to help in­di­vid­u­als on the spec­trum achieve their full po­ten­tial. While there is cur­rent­ly no known sin­gle cause of autism, “Ear­ly di­ag­no­sis and in­ter­ven­tion with in­di­vid­u­al­ized ther­a­py is cru­cial. It helps a per­son re­ceive the sup­port and ser­vices that they need and is ben­e­fi­cial for im­proved so­cial func­tion­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion and im­proved qual­i­ty of life for the child and fam­i­ly” Dr Danielle Nixon Mon­crieffe, pre­vi­ous Chief of Pae­di­atrics, Re­liant Med­ical Group, Mass­a­chu­setts, USA shared. This opin­ion is echoed by our spe­cial­ists here as well.

Ear­ly Signs

Cur­rent­ly, boys are al­so ap­prox­i­mate­ly 4.5 times more like­ly to have an autism di­ag­no­sis than girls of the same age. How­ev­er, re­cent re­search sug­gests that girls may not show autism in the same way as boys and might go un­di­ag­nosed be­cause of that.

Here are some signs to look for:

- Speaks lat­er than typ­i­cal or not at all (non­ver­bal)

- Rep­e­ti­tion in lan­guage or move­ment, such as re­peat­ing the same word or sounds, hand flap­ping, or any re­peat­ed move­ment

- Atyp­i­cal non­ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion, in­clud­ing avoid­ing eye con­tact, giv­ing few fa­cial ex­pres­sions, or hav­ing a mo­not­o­ne

- Prefers soli­tary or par­al­lel play rather than en­gag­ing in as­so­cia­tive or co­op­er­a­tive play with oth­er chil­dren

- Ex­treme­ly dis­tressed by changes, in­clud­ing new foods or changes in sched­ule

- Pref­er­ence for pre­dictable, struc­tured play over spon­ta­neous or make-be­lieve play

- Strong, per­sis­tent in­ter­est on spe­cif­ic top­ic, part of a toy, or item

[For more in­for­ma­tion on de­vel­op­men­tal mile­stones, vis­it the CDC’s “Learn the Signs. Act Ear­ly” site.]

The neu­ro­di­ver­si­ty par­a­digm em­pha­sis­es the switch away from the puz­zle rep­re­sen­ta­tion to that of the in­fin­i­ty sign. The nar­ra­tive we choose is spe­cif­ic as, “It is not a dis­abil­i­ty, or in need of cur­ing or be­ing solved.”

“The world of autism is a world of dis­cov­ery. Al­though par­ents of­ten strug­gle to un­der­stand or to cope with chal­leng­ing be­hav­iour, some­times a break­through in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, or a sim­ple ba­by step for­ward, a dis­cov­ery as it were, can bring great clar­i­ty, un­der­stand­ing and a sense of vic­to­ry” shares Dr De­bra Bartholomew, moth­er and Autism Ad­vo­cate.

Each and every autis­tic per­son brings some­thing new to the world. They face the world through their unique lens and if we are for­tu­nate enough, we can al­so ex­pe­ri­ence their AWE-TISM.