Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disability. The signs typically appear during early childhood and affect a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others their whole life. Autism is a spectrum disability, so the effects it has on each individual varies. With all the research collected there is still no set cause for autism, but the awareness for autism around the world has increased over the past years. Within recent years there has been a change in the age a person can be diagnosed. Some of the behaviors associated with autism are poor mirror skills, difficulty functioning, and making eye contact. About 1 in 68 children are diagnosed with autism every year and it is 4.5 times more common in boys.
There are no medications that can cure autism. Once the patient has been diagnosed with ASD, there are multiple treatments they can participate in to make their lives and their family’s lives a little easier. However, there are three specific treatments that are viewed as a necessity. The first one is Occupational Therapy which teaches skills that will help individuals with ASD live as independently as they can. The second is Speech therapy which helps improve individual communication skills so that they can hold conversations with others. The third most imperative therapy is ABA therapy or Applied Behavior Analysis therapy. ABA is used in many schools and comes in many forms. There is Discrete Trial Training (DTT), Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention (EIBI), Pivotal Response Training (PRT), and Verbal Behavior Intervention (VBI). And there are other types of therapy being developed year-by-year.
Having a child with autism can affect every family member involved in their life because a lot goes into taking care of the child. Parents have to place their primary focus on the well-being of their child with ASD. Putting so much focus on one thing in your life can cause stress in your personal relationships, finances, and, most importantly, the parents’ marriage. Recently, in the summer of 2017, Netflix released a new show called “Atypical”. “Atypical” is a coming-of-age dark comedy tv series which focuses on the life of Sam Gardner (Keir Gilchrist), who has autism, and the lives of his friends and family members who are affected by his autism. If you are interested in finding out how ASD affects people’s lives, I highly recommended you watch “Atypical”.