Treatments for Autism

In this essay, the author

• Explains that autism affects the brain's development and impairs communication and social skills. the severity of the disorder is characterized on a very large spectrum that depends on the individual.
• Explains that there is no known cause to the mental disorder autism, so treating it is a difficult task. there are many therapies that tackle different ways of helping the child.
• Explains that autism is a complex disorder that negatively affects the brain. it develops in the first three years of age and is linked to abnormal chemistry and biology.
• Explains that therapy is the best way to treat autism and to help the child regain communication skills.
• Explains that applied behavior analysis, or aba, is based on three steps: an antecedent, the resulting behavior, and the consequence.
• Explains that applied behavior analysis is used for many tasks that the child needs to achieve and makes tasks manageable. twenty-five to forty hours of aba therapy sessions should be practiced each week.
• Describes pivotal response treatment, a behavioral intervention therapy based on aba techniques. it targets pivotal, or important, behaviors that affect many other behaviors.
• Describes verbal behavior as a behavioral therapy based on aba. it focuses on motivating the student to make complete requests by combining words.
• Explains that floortime is a specific technique that comprise adults meeting the child's development level and interacting with them.
• Explains that therapy focuses on play time on the floor. it targets emotional development as the parent and child engage in a common activity.
• Explains that occupational therapy combines cognitive, physical and motor skills to enable the individual to gain independence and participate more fully in life.
• Describes sensory integration therapy, known as si, which helps adjust the body's need for sensory input. in autism, something interrupts the brain in how they perceive movement, touch, smell, sight, and sound.
• Explains that the picture exchange communication system helps non-verbal students communicate through pictures. the therapist builds the student's vocabulary and turns them into pictures and symbols they can recognize.
• Describes how jenny mccarthy's autistic son was influenced by changing his diet and nutrition. he went on the gluten free, casein free diet (gfcf) and took vitamin supplements.
• Explains that removal of gluten and casein from an individual's diet can be helpful for reducing some symptoms of autism. vitamin supplements can affect many parts of the body.
• Explains that autistic people interacting with animals has shown to affect behaviors positively, such as lower blood pressure and cholesterol, increase the amount of exercise people get and decrease stress.
• Explains that rupert isaacson and his son, rowanrowan improved after interacting with animals. traditional healers are also used to treat autism.
• Explains that ipads and other tablets include applications that can be included during the different types of therapy. they create visuals similar to pecs and make it more convenient to carry around.
• Explains how effective treatments work depend on the individual. researchers are still trying to find more treatments for autistic children.
• Explains that they chose this topic because their brother noah, who has severe autism, had tried just about every treatment option available and wanted to learn more about it.
• Cites arky, beth, child mind institute, pubmed health, and howstuffworks.
• Explains that behavior therapy normalizes brains of autistic children.
• Opines that behavior therapy is a treatment for autism, citing price, amy, and salahi, lara.