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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Autism Awareness Day

About Autism

Autism is a developmental disorder that typically appears during the first three years of life of the individual.. Autism impacts the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism typically have difficulties in verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions and imagination. It is a spectrum disorder.

CHARACTERISTICS OF AUTISM :

Autism is characterized by a marked impairment in the following areas:

• Social skills: Kids with autism have difficulty in initiating and sustaining relationships with their peers. It is not that they do not relate, it is that they relate in a different way. It is not that people with autism do not want to make friends, but often they do not know how. Thus, it becomes critical to teach them social skills. However, some social difficulties remain throughout life. These social deficits are the most difficult to overcome.

• Communication skills: Individuals with autism have their core difficulty in the area of communication. Many of them do not develop speech; even the ones who have a relatively good language development do not use it effectively for communication. Individuals with autism also have difficulty in using and comprehending non-verbal modes of communication like gestures and facial expressions.

• Play skills: A marked absence of pretend and imaginary play is one of the key features of autism.

Autistic individuals may show abnormal responses to sensations. Any one or more of the senses may be affected. All these difficulties manifest themselves in behaviours i.e. abnormal ways of relating to people, objects and events in the environment.

Why an Awareness Week

In the recent years there has been a marked increase in the incidence of autism. Studies have shown that I in every 500 people may be autistic or have autistic features. However, lack of awareness about the condition, leads to misdiagnosis and hence wrong intervention. It has been established that early detection and intervention can make a remarkable difference to the child’s life.

Through the Awareness programme we  seek to educate and empower parents, who we believe, are the first and the best resource for their children. AIKYA seeks to create awareness in the community about autism, because an accepting and understanding environment can go a long way in rehabilitating an individual.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry for my bad english. Thank you so much for your good post. Your post helped me in my college assignment, If you can provide me more details please email me.

jo oliver said...

Hi,

I have a handicapped child and also advocate using my blog Kaitlynn's Place. I am now following you, and would love to have you as a follower of Kaitlynn's Place.

As to this post, Autism is something that so many still do not understand, and that is sad considering it is one of the more well known of the disorders and diseases that effect our children. great info!

Special Needs Resources said...

Thanks.I am a followe now.