Autism Awareness : Common symptoms

 

Autism is manageable, but first we need to understand the nature of disorder. We need to keep one thing in mind that if we work on 10 children with Autism / ASD /ADHD or related conditions, the children will be different even if they come from same family, or same parents. We need to understand that Autism does not define their personality. Autism does not define and predictability of symptoms or traits. During one of my consultation parent said we checked our child and he doesn't meet any criteria that meet Autism or ASD. My reply was that distinction is even tricky for professionals too. We always need to spend time with a child, we need to observe them for different days in different moods.

This is a survey report which could be informal, but it could explain that how we perceived Autism and how it could turn out.

The one common symptoms is delayed Speech and language development. The child might learn to perceive as a whole instead of learning in bits and pieces. Many children play to learn alone but in my experience i have seen other children who are not Neurodivergent and they prefer to play alone too. Some of them could be more social and they could participate in two way communications too. The child might be inclined towards number and different vehicles, few could show interest in dinosaur too. But i have seen children who love animals and they love to play in fact i use their interests to start my session for speech and language development. Even i use them in play therapies and behavior management plans too. Many children love to play and they are imaginative too. When children learn language then they developed intelligence side by side. They talk excessive and they love to create things too, so what they talk means what they are thinking. That is one of main reasons i asked parents to listen very carefully what their children are talking. Because it shows what a child want and need. The child with Autism might have an imagination that they have a friend and they might tell you different stories too. These children have sensitivity too towards different things. It could be touch, smell, texture and sound too and some time this could be the reason of meltdown.

Dr Anila Khan 

Clinical psychologist and Speech Therapist 

Autism Expert