Autism disorder:

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder. It's a disorder based on the brain. It's a disorder that we diagnose based on observation of behaviours. There's no blood test, no brain test, and there's no test that we can do. That quickly says oh right, this child is autistic. It's based on looking for the different behaviours in two domains; the first is social communication. And the second domain is the domain, which we call the repetitive and restricted interest in behaviours domain.

Autism disorder causes/factors:

It's a disorder that we diagnose more often in boys than in girls. And you might ask what causes it, and the answer very quickly comes to, and I don't know we're getting closer to being in a position where we can talk about risks for you to know things that might increase the likelihood of someone developing autism.

One of the significant areas of advancement that has taken place in their area of risks has been in genetics.

Autism factors:

All of us believe that there are also significant environmental factors that must contribute to their risk too. Similarly, sunburn's risk is related to how fair our skin might be, and you know genetic factors. That set us up for whether we can be in the Sun for 10 or 15 minutes or before getting it burned. The fact is that the Sun still has to be there for that sunburn to happen. So there's an environmental component that ultimately needs to be engaged for the sunburn or autism. If you want to think about it that way and combine these genetic predispositions with the environmental factors, we're just starting to unravel. So families sitting with the diagnosis now are going to know a lot more in the coming years. And the people involved in helping with the way forward for people affected by autism are learning more and more each day.

What is autism spectrum disorder?

In parent terms, I think the simplest way for me to conceptualize it is that it's a brain disorder. So autism spectrum disorder affects a lot of different areas of a child's life. So we think of autism as affecting primarily social interaction, so that's how kids get along with other people.

How it affects a child?

It affects a child's ability to relate to others and his or her environment. And that looks very differently among kids with autism. It also depends on the age and verbal knowledge of a child. What comes naturally to you and me as far as being able to start a conversation or relate and interact with someone we're interested in can be challenging for a child with autism.

Symptoms Of Autism disorder:

 When she was younger, My daughter was not interested in friends, peers, even her siblings. She just was quiet preferred to be on her own. Some kids with autism want to have friends, but they don't know how to become friends. And to interact with others to develop a friendship. Sometimes that has to do with their communication. We cannot read other people's body language or their cues or understand the words. That they're saying, some kids are verbal and can express themselves with words. Some kids have comments, but they don't efficiently use them. So they may repeat words, or they may script. They may take the lines from movies or television that they use, and sometimes it can be functional, but sometimes they're just repeating. there are some kids like my daughter who were completely nonverbal. she doesn't talk, but she most definitely communicates. she has her way of letting us know her wants and her needs

Fixation:

Kids with autism often get very fixated on a specific thing. So it might be training one person for my daughter. It was a string. She got fixated on lines and kitchen utensils. When she was a little girl, we would also see them. Sometimes more restricted in scheduling how their room is organized. Children with autism often prefer to have things be the same way day-in-day-out and can become upset. If that routine is disrupted and then lastly, they might be repetitive in how their body moves. So some children with autism might flap their hands or flick their fingers in front of their eyes repeatedly.

showing preference by repetition:

There are different ways to show their preference for repetition either through their body. Or through their space or through how they play with toys. What else about autism. Well, there are sensory differences frequently with our kids. So the way our kids perceive the world can be very different; for example, some kids are very particular about their clothing. They may not like a specific fabric feels or how tags and shirts or seams on socks feel. We may think well about the big deal, but they may experience it as uncomfortable or painful.

What we need to do for autism child:

Whenever we diagnose autism, we know that we can utilize appropriate interventions that have gotten empirical support. The scientific community supports that. We know that we can use these empirically supported treatments to start making change—no matter what age we make that diagnosis. What we need to do is make sure that we don't get in the way. And that we provide all of the supports we need to ensure that path is clear going forward. You know every child is so wildly different from autism finding. We just needed to seek out the best help we could. No matter what the degree of how severe the autism is.