World Autism Awareness Day

April 02

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World Autism Awareness Day is observed annually on April 2nd . The term “autism” (from the Greek “autos” - itself) was first introduced by the famous Swiss psychiatrist E. Bleicher in 1920. He understood autism as isolation from the world, withdrawal into oneself.

Autism is a mental disorder from the group of general developmental disorders with characteristic qualitative abnormalities in social communication and interaction; limited stereotypical, repetitive set of interests and activities. This is a model of distorted mental development.

Modern classifications consider autism as a general “pervasive” (all-encompassing, all-pervasive) developmental disorder. This emphasizes the fact that in autism it is not just one function or a small number of functions that suffers, but the psyche as a whole. Due to the clinical diversity of manifestations of this distortion, the term “autism spectrum disorder” (ASD) arose, uniting all variants of autistic disorders and denoting a group of patients in need of specialized care. Patients with ASD have the same problems as children with autism, they require the same patterns of observation, treatment, rehabilitation, social adaptation and social functioning.

"How many people are diagnosed with autism?" is one of the most frequently asked questions and, unfortunately, also one of the most difficult to answer.

According to experts, up to 1% of the population is susceptible to various forms of autism. According to the Center for Disease Control (USA), the prevalence of ASD is 1 case in 160 newborns. That is, the incidence of ASD is higher than isolated deafness and blindness combined, than Down syndrome, and childhood cancer. It should be noted that the frequency of autism does not depend on geographic, racial, national factors, the intellectual and social status of parents and many other factors. Autism spectrum disorders are a rapidly spreading disease in all countries of the world in the last decade. All this emphasizes not the local, but the universal nature of this disorder.

Even if we assume that the increase in the number of recorded cases of autism is observed due to the improvement of diagnostic methods, we must admit that the number of people with ASD in the modern world is really growing. However, we are not talking about an epidemic in the strict sense of the word. In the Republic of Belarus, 870 children with ASD were under the supervision of psychiatrists in 2015, which is 1.1% of all children observed by a psychiatrist.

Today, autism can probably be safely called one of the most “strange” mental disorders in childhood, because it is still unknown what causes it and what exactly is disrupted in such a child. More than 50 years have passed since Leo Kanner first described the syndrome of classical autism. Since then, research and clinical work have led to an expansion of the concept of autistic disorders.

At the moment, there are several theories explaining the appearance of autism: genetic (specific chromosomal abnormalities), theory based on environmental influences (exposure to heavy metals on the body), immunological (hypertrophic reaction of the body to a “trigger”), metabolic (metabolic disorders, similar to phenylketonuria) or neurological (Landau-Kleffner syndrome and similar disorders). However, none of the existing theories can fully explain the nature of this disorder.

In order to understand what is happening to such a child, imagine that everything you feel has increased or decreased a hundredfold. Light touches can cause you pain or, conversely, a strong blow can go unnoticed. A bright thing, previously familiar sounds will become frightening, and the interlocutor’s speech will simply turn into a melody. Of course, an adult could somehow adapt even to such difficulties, but a child with ASD experiences them from birth.

It is difficult to imagine this, but one can understand that in this case the world of people and the world of things are perceived differently by him. But how this is “otherwise” we can only guess. It is precisely this distortion of mental development in children with autism that leads to the formation of a protective mechanism that “fences off” such a child from the influences of the outside world and thereby complicates contact with it, distorting his entire development. Such children have pronounced difficulties in interacting with other people and with the world around them in general. They have broken emotional connections even with the closest people. Some children with autism may not use speech at all, while others produce detailed adult monologues and quote phrases from books and cartoons. In both cases, their speech practically does not act as a means of communication.

As for their intellectual abilities, the picture is the same: a child with autism can solve complex mathematical problems and be unable to go to the store or tie his shoelaces. The game, if you can call it that, is very unique. It consists of manipulating some, often non-game, objects: pouring water, admiring the glare, laying out sticks in rows. At the same time, attempts to intervene, change or stop the game cause violent protest.

If such a child was able to somehow integrate into this world, then he will protect his usual way of life. Not because he is stubborn, but because any changes, even minor ones, are like a nightmare. Such a child is distinguished by extreme unusualness, often pretentiousness in behavior and habits, which is in no way associated with poor upbringing or bad character, which others often attribute to them. A child with autism develops differently from birth, his development is distorted, so attentive parents notice characteristic features already in infancy.

Autism is one of those diseases that, in addition to mental health disorders, has a number of socially significant consequences: problems of social adaptation; problems of education, professional training; significant decrease in quality of life; high level of disability; the presence of a serious stress factor (a diagnosis of autism) for the patient’s family and immediate environment.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that childhood autism is not a problem of childhood alone. Difficulties in communication and social adaptation change shape, but do not go away over the years, and help and support should accompany a person suffering from autism throughout his life.

Currently, there is no scientifically proven information about the main cause of autism, therefore there is no “healing” treatment in medicine or “miraculous” techniques in special pedagogy and psychology, thanks to which it would be possible to “cure” a child, rid him of the influence of autism. the course of its development of this cause. However, it is known that if thoroughly thought-out specialized assistance is provided in a timely manner, based on the cooperation of the family with specialists who have modern knowledge about autism, significant positive results can be achieved, because secondary manifestations are less stable and therefore more amenable to correction.

Availability and quality of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic care are two important components that determine the effectiveness of treatment and rehabilitation of children suffering from any form of mental pathology.

In recent years, approaches to the organization and provision of psychiatric care to children with ASD have changed, with an emphasis on providing assistance in outpatient settings.

Correctional work for children with autism is necessarily complex; medication, psychological, and speech therapy assistance taken separately, as a rule, does not lead to lasting positive changes. Each child with ASD requires an individual approach to the selection of both medications and basic psychological and pedagogical strategies.

Modern approaches to the rehabilitation stage of children with autism require close interaction between the educational and medical systems, public organizations, and continuity in the interaction of educational institutions and health care institutions providing psychiatric care to children.

Important factors in the treatment and rehabilitation process are the degree of parental participation and the effectiveness of interaction between specialists and the child’s immediate environment (family members). Family counseling and family psychotherapy are an integral part of helping such children.