Editorial: Secondary vs Idiopathic Autism PMC

Check out one father’s story on his “frustrations” with autism awareness. Massages, weighted clothing and blankets, and meditation techniques may also help some autistic people manage symptoms. Some people may respond well to certain approaches, while others may not. Rather, for some autistic people, supportive therapies and other considerations can help them feel better or alleviate certain symptoms.

They may also not pick up on body language or social cues such as eye contact and facial expressions if they provide more information than the person can process at that time. They struggle with understanding the context and subtext of conversational or printed situations, and have trouble forming resulting conclusions about the content. This also results in a lack of social awareness and atypical language expression. How facial expressions differ between those on the autism spectrum and neurotypical people is not clear. Further, at least half of autistic children have unusual prosody. Impairments in social skills present many challenges for autistic people.

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Autistic people experience deficits in their ability to develop, maintain, and understand relationships, as well as difficulties adjusting behavior to fit social contexts. ASD presents with impairments in pragmatic communication skills, such as difficulty initiating a conversation or failure to consider a listener’s interests to sustain a conversation. The ability to be focused exclusively on one topic in communication is known as monotropism, and can be compared to “tunnel vision”. It is common for autistic people to communicate strong interest in a specific topic, speaking in lesson-like monologues about their passion instead of enabling reciprocal communication. What may look like self-involvement or indifference to others stems from a struggle to recognize or remember that other people have their own personalities, perspectives, and interests. Another difference in pragmatic communication skills is that autistic people may not recognize the need to control the volume of their voice in different social settings; for example, they may speak loudly in libraries or movie theaters. From this point of view, autistic people often still have a disability, but need to be accommodated rather than cured.

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There is also no evidence to suggest that any other childhood vaccine may increase the risk of autism. Evidence reviews of the potential association between the preservative thiomersal and aluminium adjuvants contained in inactivated vaccines and the risk of autism strongly concluded that vaccines do not increase the risk of autism.

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Evidence-based psychosocial interventions can improve communication and social skills, with a positive impact on the well-being and quality of life of both autistic people and their caregivers. A developmental screening will tell your doctor whether your child is on track with basic skills like learning, speaking, behavior, and moving. Experts suggest that children be screened for these developmental delays during their regular checkups at 9 months, 18 months, and 24 or 30 months of age. Children are routinely checked specifically for autism at their 18-month and 24-month checkups. Conversely, some multidisciplinary research suggests that recent human evolution may be a driving force in the rise of a number of medical conditions in recent human populations, including autism.

This includes decreasing stress, anxiety, ruminating thoughts, anger, and aggression. An updated Cochrane review found evidence that music therapy likely improves social interactions, verbal communication, and nonverbal communication skills. There has been early research on hyperbaric treatments in children with autism.

Many autistic people avoid everyday situations because of their sensitivity issues. Schools, workplaces and shopping centres can be particularly overwhelming and cause sensory overload. There are many simple adjustments that can be made to make environments more autism-friendly.

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1 in every 54 childrenin the United States is affected by autism. Another evidence-based intervention that has demonstrated efficacy is a parent training model, which teaches parents how to implement various ABA and DSP techniques themselves. People on the autism spectrum are significantly more likely to be non-theistic than members of the general population.