BCA

Autism is often described as a neurological disorder that prevents the brain from functioning normally. This developmental disability is identified more by the absence of specific behaviors (language and social interactions) and often by the excesses of problem behaviors (tantrums, aggression, self-stimulation). Autism usually becomes noticeable in the first three years of a child’s life. Some children with Autism start out exhibiting typical developmental patterns and then many of the typical behaviors begin to ‘drop out’ of their repertoire around 18 months of age. A number of parents have reported that the decrease in typical behaviors such as eye contact, responding to their name, and appropriate toy play was so gradual they barely noticed it until it became apparent that their child was no long using language or engaging in many of the behaviors common for a preschool age child.

What is rarely stated is that Autism does not cause these behaviors. Rather the behaviors are exhibited because they ‘work’ for the child. These behaviors “work” for the child in that the child has learned that these behaviors are effective in communicating their wants, needs, feelings, dissatisfactions, pleasures and emotions to the people around them.

What is important is to teach the child to use other appropriate behaviors to communicate their preferences and dislikes and how they feel. That is, teach them socially acceptable ways to interact with others. These children often lack the skills necessary to interact with the world in a manner that is not challenging to those who are around the child.

The essence of treatment for persons with Autism is teaching them behaviors that will help them adapt to and interact more effectively with the world around them. The challenging behaviors are considered problem behaviors because they interfere with the child's learning, social skills and survival. Since the behaviors or lack of appropriate behavior is the issue, then an approach that focuses on behavior is needed.

A very small percentage of children with Autism exhibit the kind of amazing skills that have been identified in the movie “Rain Man”. Many children with Autism require intensive behavioral treatment to gain even the most basic life skills. They often need repeated instruction and countless opportunities to practice everyday behaviors such as toileting, getting dressed, eating, making eye contact and communicating with others. Academic skills require many prerequisite behaviors such as making eye contact, sitting appropriately and attending to instruction. Acquiring these skills often takes months and months of careful training to bring about the responses to common situations. It is that training that helps children acquire and maintain these basic skills.

An older term for Autism was Childhood Schizophrenia, in that a child with Autism was not able to make sense of the world around them and seemed to be “in their own world.” Regardless of the term used, Autism as a diagnostic label has been used more in recent years than ever before. There is ongoing debate as to whether there are more children with Autism or whether more children are being diagnosed as having Autism due to increased attention to the development and behavior of young children and a wider definition of the diagnosis.

What is agreed is that once a child is diagnosed with Autism, the earlier a child begins receiving treatment, the better the chances of helping the child develop typical and adaptive behaviors. As well, many treatments have been proposed yet few have been able to produce consistent reliable results. Since the one thing we cannot give a child is the time that is lost with inappropriate ineffective treatment, it is crucial to approach treatment of children with Autism with what is known to be the more effective methods.

Autism is referred to as a “spectrum disorder” in that the characteristics that define the disorder cover a wide range of children’s behaviors as opposed to a very narrow range of behaviors. That is, children with Autism can range from low to high functioning, non-verbal to verbal, non-social to social and capable of self-help skills to needing to be feed and assisted with the basic toileting and dressing skills. Some children are not able to feed themselves, or exhibit other basic self-help skills while others are able to not only take care of their own basic needs, but are able to read, write, communicate with others and function quite well on a daily basis. Children who are high functioning and exhibit mostly inappropriate social behaviors including in the inability to take the perspective of others are sometimes referred to as having Aspergers Syndrome.

A number of characteristics have been identified as common to Autism. These include

insistence on things staying the same and resisting change
problems communicating effectively with others
uncontrolled laughing or crying,
spinning or lining up objects repeatedly,
lack of safety awareness to strangers or dangerous environments such as stairs, crossing the street or climbing
extensive tantrumming,
isolating from others
repeating words or phrases (sometimes called video talk)
avoiding physical touch or high sensitivity to being touched
high tolerance to pain.

THEORIES OF ETIOLOGY,

There is no clear agreement as to what causes Autism though many experts from a number of fields of research have attempted to identify the elusive cause of this disorder. The most common agreement so far, is that Autism is some form of a brain disorder yet there is not yet agreement as to why the brain does not function as evidenced with a “typical” child. Theories of diet, environment, immunizations and other causes remain speculative at this point in time. Clearly, when a cause of Autism reaches consensus, there will be a highly publicized effort to inform all parents and specialists working to help people with Autism. Until then, speculation and hypotheses dominate the answer to “What Causes Autism?”

TREATMENTS AND PSEUDO-TREATMENTS,

Just as there is no agreement among experts about the cause of Autism, there is not a consensus about the best way to treat Autism. There may be a wider range of theories about how to treat Autism than there is about its cause. This speculation however is more dangerous than speculation about the cause of Autism.

A number of “treatments” have been proposed and tried with mixed results. Few of the methods proposed and used are able to provide the kind of information and results that would allow a greater number of people with Autism to be treated with success.

The current method of treatment that has produced a high degree of agreement comes from the behavioral sciences and is often referred to as ABA. ABA stands for Applied Behavior Analysis and is one of the few, if not the only, methodology that dedicates itself to following the actual data about behavior of any learner and uses the principles of learning for humans to treat people with Autism. The main focus is on designing teaching methods and the environment to promote acceptable and adaptive behaviors which will help a person engage in their own environments successfully and allow them to lead a “typical” lifestyle to the extent that is possible.

It is important for all concerned about Autism and treatment of this disorder to be aware of a number of “pseudo-treatments” which can lead to worsening behaviors for those receiving those treatments. That is, practitioners and parents alike must learn to recognize genuine practices. A desperate parent may be willing to try almost anything yet some of the “pseudo-treatments” rob the child of precious time and create the illusion of improvement while not actually producing significant progress in the development and skill acquisition needed for a child. We caution anyone working with Autism to become familiar with what works and what is merely a “hope and a wish” that it would work. Anecdotes dominate this area of information while reliable scientific results dominate procedures using ABA.

More information and details about Autism and ABA can be found on the web site for the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies at www.behavior.org. Parents are encouraged to explore this web site for additional information about Autism as well as ABA.

See the following link for an overview of Autism.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/07/28/autism.overview