Autism Awareness Facts

One in 150 children are born with autism, yet so many people do not really understand what autism truly encompasses. This developmental disability is widely misunderstood because of the wide difference in the way it affects different people. The mystery of autism has had some light shed on it by Hollywood with movies like "Mozart and The Whale," "I Am Sam," "The Other Sister," "Rain Man" and "Miracle Run."

What Is Autism?

• Typically autism is referred to as autistic spectrum disorder, because it effects every person differently and symptoms can be varied. Autism starts at birth or before the child is two and half years old. By appearance, autistic children resemble normal neurotypical children, but they display bizarre and sometimes disturbing behaviors (see section 4 below).

What Causes Autism?

• While there are some factors that are known to increase the risk of autism in children, there is really no known single cause of autism. It is known that children with autism have differences in size and structure of the brain as compared to those of neurotypical children. Causes like heredity, genetics, birth-related medical problems and even environmental factors are being researched. Many studies have pointed towards the mercury in early childhood vaccines as a cause of autism. Mercury has been removed as an ingredient in childhood vaccines, and only time will show if it dramatically decreases the number of new autism patients.

Treatment for Autism

• Autism is treated two major ways: specialized education and nutrition. With specialized education, the importance is recognizing the symptoms early and introducing the treatment plan early. Every treatment plan should cover the child's sensory development, social development, behavior and communication, the four areas in which most autistic children lack. As for nutrition and biomedical treatments, children's diets and metabolism are monitored closely. Also children are likely to have certain foods removed from their diets, most typically those containing yeast, and have regular detoxification.

Behavioral Signs of Autism

• Autism is diagnosed when a total of six marked behaviors from the following list are present in the child.
  Impairments in nonverbal behaviors in a social setting
  Unable to develop peer relationships
  Unable to share enjoyment of others
  Not participating in social games or play, not including others in play
  Delay in development or lack of spoken language
  Inability or impairment of sustaining and initiating a conversation
  Repetitive phrases and repetition of phrases spoken by others
  Little or no variety of make-believe play
  Inflexible with routines and daily rituals
  Repetitive motions like hand flapping, leg bouncing or other unusual body movements
  Easily becomes preoccupied with parts of an object
  These behaviors can be the tip of many areas of autism. Children that only display three or four of these behaviors can be diagnosed as Pervasive Developmental Disorder or PDD.

Myths of Autism

• Myth number one: Autistic people are all alike.
  The saying goes, "If you have met one person with autism, then you have met one person with autism." No person with autism is exactly like any other person with autism. The disorder affects everyone differently. The common thread among autistic people is their difficultly with social communication.
  Myth number two: People with autism are unable to have emotions.
  This is the most absurd myths; every autistic child I know is so much more loving and empathetic than even the neurotypical children I know. Sometimes people do not understand their empathy because it is not shown in typical ways.
  Myth number three: Everyone who is autistic is a savant.
  While there are savants who are autistic, this is not widely true. Most autistic people have normal or below normal skills.
  Myth number four: Autistic people can't do much and are not a contributing part of society.
  Autistic children, just like neurotypical children, need support from their loved ones to achieve their goals. Autistic people can do great things.

Other Autism Facts

• Every day, 60 families find out their child has autism.
  In the United States, autism is the fastest growing developmental disability.
  The annual growth rate of autism in the United States is 10 percent to 17 percent.
  Autism gets less than 5 percent of public funding that goes towards all childhood diseases.
  If autism is caught and intervened early, there is a two-thirds reduction in lifelong care cost.
  1.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with some form of autism.