AUTISM THERAPY

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Autism Treatment Options

Sunday, April 6, 2008 9:53 AM Vajradenta

Unfortunately, there is no one best treatment package for all children with autism. Most professionals do agree that early intervention is very important, and that most individuals with autism respond well to highly structured and specialized programs.

To help you make decisions on your child's treatment for autism you will need to gather as much information as possible about the various options available. Look at all the options and make decisions based on your child's needs. A starting point may be a visit to the public schools in your area to see the type of programs they offer to special needs children.

Review the following guideline of questions to ask about potential treatments used by the Autism Society of America:

• Will the treatment result in harm to my child?
• How will failure of the treatment affect my child and family?
• Has the treatment been validated scientifically?
• Is there assessment procedures specified?
• How will the treatment be integrated into my child's current program? Do not fully accept a treatment option where functional curriculum, vocational life, and social skills are ignored.
Review the following list of questions the National Institute of Mental Health suggests parents can ask when planning for their child's treatment options:
• How successful has the program been for other children?
• How many children have gone on to placement in a regular school and how have they performed?
• Do staff members have training and experience in working with children and adolescents with autism?
• How are activities planned and organized?
• Are there predictable daily schedules and routines?
• How much individual attention will my child receive?
• How is progress measured? Will my child's behavior be closely observed and recorded?
• Will my child be given tasks and rewards that are personally motivating?
• Is the environment designed to minimize distractions?
• Will the program prepare me to continue the therapy at home?
• What are the cost, time commitment, and location of the program?

Applied behavior analysis is a widely accepted and effective treatment.

The effects of applied behavior analysis include:
• Reduced inappropriate behavior
• Increased communication, learning, and appropriate social behavior

The basic research of 30 years was done by Ivar Lovaas and his colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles. The research involved an intensive, one-on-one child-teacher interaction for 40 hours a week, which laid a foundation for other educators and researchers in the search for further effective early interventions to help people with autism attain their unique potential. The basic goal of applied behavior analysis (behavioral management) is to reinforce the desirable behaviors and to reduce those behaviors that are undesirable.

The most effective treatment program will:
• Build upon the child's interests
• Offer a predictable schedule
• Teach tasks as a series of simple steps
• Actively engage the child's attention in highly structured activities
• Provide regular reinforcement of desirable behaviors

Professionals recognize that parents are a child's earliest teachers and realize parental involvement is a major factor in treatment success. More programs are starting to train parents to continue the therapy at home. Parents are encouraged to work with teachers and therapists to help identify behaviors to change and skills to teach.

Instruction should begin as soon as a child's disability has been identified. Appropriate therapy usually takes place in the home or a child care center for children with autism younger than 3 years of age.

Therapy targets specific deficits in:
• Learning
• Language
• Imitation
• Attention
• Motivation
• Compliance
• Initiative of interaction

Therapies included are:
• Behavioral methods
• Communication such as speech therapy
• Occupational and physical therapy
• Social play interventions

A typical day may begin with a physical activity in an effort to help develop coordination and body awareness.

Activities may include:
• Stringing beads
• Putting puzzles together
• Painting
• Participating in other motor skills activities

During a snack break, the teacher can encourage social interaction and demonstrate how to use “words” or “language” to ask for more cookies or juice, which allows children to learn by doing.
School-based, individualized, special education is usually available for children older than 3 years of age. A child with autism may be in a segregated class with other autistic children or integrated into a class with children without disabilities for part of the day. Different localities will use different methods, but all programs should provide a structure that helps children with autism to learn social skills and functional communication. Teachers should give parents useful advice in how to help the child with autism use the skills or behaviors learned at school when they are at home.

Elementary school for children with autism should provide help in any skill area that is delayed and encourage children with autism to grow in his or her areas of strength. The ideal curriculum is one that is adapted to the individual child's needs.

Middle school and high school years should begin to address practical matters that include:
• Work
• Community living
• Recreational activities

The child and young adolescent with autism should be offered:
• Work experience
• Experience using public transportation
• Daily functional skills that will be of benefit to him or her while living in the community

In conclusion, as the parent and/or parents of a child or children with autism, you will want to always be an active participant in his or her education program. Learn all you can about autism and the treatment options available to you in your specific community.
Always remember that cooperation and communication between parents and educators is an essential key in identifying the child with autism's special needs and planning an appropriate education program.

Source: National Institute of Mental Health; Autism Society of America

Disclaimer: *This article is not meant to diagnose, treat or cure any kind of a health problem. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Always consult with your health care provider about any kind of a health problem and especially before beginning any kind of an exercise routine.

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Autism Therapy Methods

Until today, no real cure for autism has been detected. But an early and proper treatment could very much lessen the disruptive behavior and reduce the challenges parents and physicians deal with due to the disorder. An appropriate treatment might help autistic patients to learn, develop certain skills and get a specific rate of independency.

Autism can be treated by occupational therapy that tries to improve patient's basic skills and functions like getting dressed on their own, bathing or eating alone. Body movements can also be helped by different physical exercises such as massaging.

A first step in the autism treatment is helping these children to modify and improve their behavior, which is usually lead by aggressiveness, repetitive and inappropriate actions. A new behavioral modification method is the Applied Behavior Analysis based on the main idea that patients are more likely to repeat a rewarded action than an ignored one. Autistic children are helped to learn hoe to sustain normal functions inside their environment.

The behavior modification methods deal with highly professional ways of inducing certain skills. All patients must learn how to react and behave in a society; every particular child needs a different therapy method according to his needs and interests. A full time intense care with a therapist and a caretaker is required for every single patient.

Most autistics cannot integrate senses and suffer either from a hypo- or from hyperactivity of the sensor integrating organs. Sensor therapy is usually performed by physical, occupational and speech therapists; they all must work together to erase wrong further accumulated sensor information and induce reorganized sensory knowledge.

In case of problems dealing with the touch sense, the autistic patient will be helped to learn working with different kind of materials and different textures. Listening to several sounds with different frequencies might help autistics integrate noises. Many autistic children suffer from a hyper-reactivity to sounds and even receive them as painful. Therapists must carefully observe and understand the sensor needs of the patient in order to establish an efficient treatment.
Autistic children are most often emotionally reduced and this estate affects also their social communication skills and desire. Therapists usually use a playing technique controlled by the child to help the improvement of their emotional development. Educational social stories are used to help patients understand their own feelings and manage with them. They are also taught to understand others ideas and points of view.

Another behavior modification method is the communication therapy to teach small children with autistic disorders how to develop their language and show elder patients how to use verbal communication. A sustained speech therapy could even help some of the children to use language to communicate with the others.

Autistic sufferers are taught hoe to express ideas, wishes or concerns by using pictures. The picture exchange communication system allows autistics to interact with others by pictures representing ideas, items or even activities.

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How To Modify Autistic Tendencies In Children

Both subjective and objective factors could trigger autistic tendencies. The subjective factor refers that some children might be born with shy and introverted character, which makes them not good at communication. The subjective factors basically come form family education. In addition, some children avoid social contact because of bad experience in interpersonal relationships. Autistic tendencies are bad for children's health and should be modified, here's some tips for parents.

1. Good family atmosphere.
Parents should create harmonious and democratic family atmosphere for the child. If the parents don't get along very well, even fighting a lot, the child will be hurt and become uncommunicative, depressed and eccentric gradually.

2. Go outside.
Don't close your child at home, encourage the kid to play together with other children in neighborhood. Take your child to amusement parks, zoo on holidays, or visiting friends and relatives.

3. Face and fix problems.
Setbacks are inevitable in social interactions, some kids are naturally sensitive, and if they were refused, they will be very sad, and gradually become afraid of making friends. Parents should pay attention to the children's emotional changes, and communication with your children from time to time. When kids have problems, you could teach them how to solve them in reasonable and effective ways.

4. Set a good example.
You are the first teacher of your child, so you should set a good example for your child in interpersonal relationships and other areas. The child will learn form you naturally.

5. Don's blame your child all the time.
If parents often blame, deny children arbitrarily, it is easy for children to lose self-esteem and self-confidence, they will tend to blame themselves for everything. Once this self-condemnation become a habit, it will cause the autism-like behaviors. So, parents should encourage them a lot, making them feel confident.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Echo_Armman

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Asperger's and Genius Share Same Characteristics

A famous psychiatric, Michael Fitzgerald from Trinity College, Dublin has claimed that many geniuses in the fields of science, politics and the arts have achieved success because they had Asperger's syndrome(AS), a mild form of Autism.

Michael Fitzgerald said that lots of geniuses showed autistic traits, such as Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, George Orwell and H G Wells. According to the diagnosis after death, these people had Asperger's syndrome: Ludwig van Beethoven, Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus, Andersen Hans Christian and Kant Immanuel.

At a meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Academic Psychiatry, Fitzgerald argued that the gene linked to Asperger's syndrome were the same as those associated with creativity and genius. "Psychiatric disorders can also have positive dimensions. I'm arguing the genes for autism/Asperger's, and creativity are essentially the same. We don't know which genes they are yet or how many there are, but we are talking about multiple genes of small effect. Every case is unique because people have varying numbers of the genes involved."

"Asperger's sufferers can be so successful mainly because they are more focused and persistent, they do not get distracted and they are not interested in outside society." he added.
Michael Fitzgerald compared the charateristics of 1600 autism patients to some geniuses and found they have many traits in common. His book "Genius Genes: How Asperger Talents Changed the World" was pubilshed at the end of last year.

But there are also different opinions. Amanda Batten, of the national autistic society, said it is important to avoid stereotypes of people with autism as geniuses. Anyway, it is estimated that for every 10,000 people, there are 60 to 120 people with autism, and the percentage of genius is definitly less than that.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Echo_Armman

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Autism - Symptoms and Causes

Autism is one kind of developmental disabilities which is characterized by impaired social interaction, problems with communication skills, repetitive behaviors and limited activities and interests. According to the surveys, there's one autistic children out of 150 kids in America, one out of 1000 in Canada. Boys are more prone to autism than girls.

While there is no general agreement on an ultimate root of autism causes, various schools of thought identify potential causes for autism to develop. Genetics is one oft-cited possible cause for autism. While many would agree that the chances for an adult with autism to have offspring with autism, the genetic theory goes further than that.

Essentially, combinations of genetic factors that may reach back generations in the gene pools of the father and mother may come together in such a way as to create an impact on the central nervous system. Thus, autism may be the random result of combined family DNA. However, at present, there is no definitive proof of this theory for the origin of autism. In like manner, there is a theory that a child who is exposed to large amounts of electronic media before the age of three years may develop autism.

A lately study shows that Maternal Antibodies may link to autism. Prenatal Exposure To Maternal Antibodies could cause autistic behaviors.

General symptoms of autistic children include:
1. Difficulty in verbal and nonverbal communication. Avoid eye contact. Prefers to play alone.
2. Prefers to changeless life style. Difficulty in adjusting to changes in routine or familiar surroundings.
3. Difficulty in using and understanding language. Repeating words or phrases.
4. Repetitive body movements. Inability to concentrate on one thing. Lack of imagination.

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How Music Therapy Works For Autism Treatment

Generally speaking, there's two ways that music therapy works for children with autism: the active way and the passive way.
As the passive way, the music could be played by a therapist or a radio. And if the child with autism gets used to it, listening to music could become part of her/his daily life. Because one of the important characteristics of autism is to repeat things, like always saying the same words and repeating the same behaviors, so this characteristic can be used for the treatment of autism. When it is time, the autistic child will ask for the music, so we could use this to make her/him to learn, after that, we will play the music as an encouragement. In addition, if the autistic child have a unstable emotion, the music can assist them to calm down.
The active way of music therapy, is to ask the autistic children to participate in the music, playing instruments, singing with the therapist, or dancing as they like. I have seen a smart 5 yr old autistic boy, his language skill is not very good, but he is talented in music. After coming home form some activity, he could play the piano to express his feelings. There's also some children with autism who don't like to speak if you told them normally, but once you sing the words, they will learn.
So, for some of the children with autism, music could be a effective way assisted in studying language, calming down emotion, or expressing themselves. For some of them, music have become a very important part of their lives and treatments.

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Gluten And Casein Free Diets For Autistic Kids

It's the parents of children with autism but not the doctors and researchers who found out the dietary treatment for autism firstly. These parents discovered that, after eating specific food, the autism of their kids got worse. So, they began to watch out which food is bad for autism. Since the effecting food for every child is different, but there's something in common. These common food include wheat, rye, barley, and most oat products, milk products, eggs and chocolate,etc.
In fact, children with autism may have trouble digesting proteins like gluten and casein which are widely found in oat and milk products. The gluten and casein can leak into the gut and attach to the opiate receptors of the autistic's brain, affecting brain functions. So, in the 1999 DAN (Defeat Autism Now) conference, there were many companies that have provided gluten-free and casein-free diet for parents.

Some now may ask what are gluten and casein exactly. Well, gluten is a protein fraction found in all wheat, rye, barley, and most oat products, but not in rice and potatoes. After having gluten-free diet for 6-12 months, most of the autistic children get a obvious improvement; Casein is a protein fraction found in all dairy products, such as milk, butter, cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, etc. Researchers had found that casein free diet is doing very well for autistic kids between 2-4 yr old.

The gluten-free, casein-free diet is challenging, but it can make a big difference for children with autism. It is important not to withdraw gluten/casein food products at once from a child's diet, as there can be withdrawal symptoms.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Echo_Armman

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Dolphin Therapy For Autistic Children

Dolphins are one of the most intelligent animals in the world. Researchers found out that they can help people who suffer from neurological disorders, especially autistic children. Dolphin therapy is claimed to increase speech and motor skills of children with autism, however, it's still a controversial topic.

Dolphins are popular in human culture because of their friendly appearance and loveable attitude, in Greek myths, dolphins are helpers of the Minoans, messengers of Poseidon. Recently, Dr. Ken Marten at Sea Life Park in Hawaii demonstrated that dolphins can recognize themselves in mirrors, and, they are also sentient, fully conscious, with complex language of their own. Nowadays, Dolphins are among the most popular choices of animal-assisted therapy for children with autism, Down's syndrome, depression and other developmental disabilities and psychological problems. In dolphin assisted therapy (DAT) programs, kids on the Autism Spectrum could swim with dolphins in natatorium, and having lessons on land. Commonly, kids are delighted to pet and play with dolphins, but there is no scientific evidence to prove that the dolphin therapy is effective.

"It provides me with hope, more than anything," said Omar Ramos, whose son, John-Ross, has autism. "I want my child to be able to experience a lot of different things, and so it gives me a lot of hope, especially when I see him being able to do stuff in the water or with the dolphin, even with a computer."

Many children would enjoy playful interaction with a dolphin, however, dolphin therapy can not "cure" autism as other therapies. But, it can make kids happy, so it's still worth a try.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Echo_Armman

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