Autism Essay

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In the 19th century, a man by the name of Leo Kanner was a pediatric psychiatrist who discovered and described the features of Autism. Today, Autism is known as a disorder that is affecting many children around the world at an alarming rate with no signs of slowing down. Autism is one of the five pervasive development disorders. Autism is defined as a neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs speech and critical thinking and affects physical behavior. Children from birth to the age of three may be showing signs that he or she will contain the disorder.
The symptoms or clinical features that arise from autism are seen through non-verbal and physical behavior, lack of peer-to-peer relationship, and speech impairment. Nonverbal signs can be when a child is gazing at an object or long periods of times, staring at a person with eye-to-eye contact with no response and having no eye contact with a person. Physical behavior can be seen as doing repetitive actions as repeating words or phrases others say, needs to be assisted to join in on activities, and doing strange behavior such as, moving arms back and forth at random times. Lack of peer relationships can be when they are having difficulties building a friendship with other kids at older ages because of the autistic child’s physical behavior. This may cause the autistic child to be seen as awkward and weird leading the child to be isolated from other kids. Lastly, having difficulties pronouncing words, not being able to speak correctly, unable to express his or her needs, weakens speech, vocabulary is limited, and tone of voice sounds different are shown in impaired speech.
Research cases have not yet found the leading cause of Autism because it is not inherited genetically. Autis...

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... more prone to have Autism than females, showing a 4:1 ratio. In 1999, the population genetics increase to 1 in every 1,000 children born. The next increase in diagnoses was in the year 2008 when statistics showed that 40 to 60 out of 1,000 children had Autism. Currently in the year 2014, statistics are showing that 1 in every 68 births, a child will be diagnosed with autism.
Lastly, no cure has been established for Autism because of the complexity of several genes being involved and environmental factors playing a role. For now, therapy sessions and medications are suggested for parents who have autistic children. Therapy sessions that are available are in behavior, building social skills, verbal therapy to help with speech difficulties and relationship development. Medication is only used to help treat emotional symptoms such as anxiety, sadness, and depression.

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