Sunday, March 24, 2024

Are People Born With Autism

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What Doesn’t Cause Autism

Autistic People are NOT natural born leaders… we’re this instead…

Bad parenting

There was a bleak period in history from the 1950s to 1970s when autism was believed to be a psychological disorder, and blamed on cold, uncaring parents, usually the mothers.

Fortunately, the myth of the refrigerator mother has been debunked by science, and autism is now recognised as a disorder of brain development with genetic links. Nothing you said or did as a parent caused your child to develop autism, so please dont listen to anyone who suggests otherwise.

Vaccines

Scores of scientific studies have effectively ruled out vaccines as a cause of autism. Concerns originally arose around two issues of Mercury and the MMR Vaccine

In 2014, a meta-analysis, combining the result of 10 studies and over 1.2 million children, found no link between vaccines and autism. The World Health Organization, the European Medicines Agency, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other leading international health groups have also concluded theres no link. Unfortunately, the belief persists among anti-vaccination campaigners, who are very vocal on the Internet. If you remain concerned about vaccines, arrange a time to talk your paediatrician or GP. Remember, Vaccines Save Lives!

Asd Is Four Times More Likely To Occur In Boys Than Girls

That said, the validity of this stat should be put under scrutiny. According to autism misdiagnosis statistics, many autistic girls go undiagnosed. One of the reasons for that is that girls are often thought to be quieter by nature. Finally, symptoms of mental health issues might overlap with those of autism, leading up to a misdiagnosis.

Autisms Genetic Risk Factors

Research tells us that autism tends to run in families. Changes in certain genes increase the risk that a child will develop autism. If a parent carries one or more of these gene changes, they may get passed to a child . Other times, these genetic changes arise spontaneously in an early embryo or the sperm and/or egg that combine to create the embryo. Again, the majority of these gene changes do not cause autism by themselves. They simply increase risk for the disorder

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How Is Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosed

Different health care providers evaluate your child to help diagnose ASD. Providers include:

  • Developmental pediatrician. This is a pediatrician who has special training in child development and taking care of children with special needs.
  • Child neurologist. This is a doctor who treats the brain, spine and nerves in children.
  • Child psychiatrist or child psychologist. These are mental health professionals who have special training to take care of children with emotional or mental health problems.
  • Occupational therapist. This is a specialist who helps people learn to carry out everyday activities.
  • For children, this may be things like brushing teeth, getting dressed, putting on shoes or learning to use a pencil.
  • Physical therapist. This is a specialist who creates exercise programs to help build strength and help with movement.
  • Speech therapist. This is a specialist who helps people with speech and language problems. For children this may include helping with saying sounds or words correctly and completely. It can also include in helping children be understood and also understand others.

To evaluate your child, the providers may:

Your childs providers may use medical tests to see if your child has a medical condition with signs or symptoms that are similar to ASD. These include:

Anthony Hopkins Autism Facts

I was born autistic but not bad

In 2017, Anthony Hopkins was interviewed by the Daily Mail about his troubles with addiction and Aspergers. Anthony Hopkins autistic diagnosis, more specifically Aspergers, was diagnosed late in life. He told the Daily Mail he was a loner and said:

I dont go to parties, I dont have many friendsBut I do like people. I do like to get inside their heads.

When asked if his Aspergers helped him as an actor, he said:

I definitely look at people differently. I like to deconstruct, to pull a character apart, to work out what makes them tick and my view will not be the same as everyone else. I get offered a lot of controlling parts, maybe because thats how people see me. And maybe I am very controlled because Ive had to be. I dont question it, I just take the parts because Im an actor and thats what I do.

  • Heather Kuzmich Americas Next Top Model Contestant
  • Paige Layle TikTok Personality

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What Is Joint Attention

Problems with joint attention are one of the most early and common signs of ASD. Joint attention is when your child looks back and forth between an object and a person. When a child does this to share interest and interact with another person, he develops skills that help him connect with other people. Most children with ASD have delays in joint attention skills, or they dont have any joint attention skills.

These are examples of how children with ASD may show different joint attention skills:

Regression Can Be Real Or Apparent

Over the past few years, there have been some debates as to whether regression, in which there is a loss of acquired communication or social skills, is a real phenomenon or an apparent one. Some have wondered whether parent reports were exaggerated.

Video records, however, combined with studies, make it clear that at least some children do in fact regress into autism while others either show signs of autism in infancy or “plateau” in their development.

A relatively new set of studies looking at the younger siblings of children with autism in their earliest months are discovering that subtle regression is quite common. While parents may notice issues such as loss of language or eye contact, researchers are noticing small losses in the areas of motor skills and response to social cues.

Such regression typically occurs before age 3. According to researcher Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, “upwards of 20% to 30% recall a period when their children lost social and communication skills in the second year of life.”

At present, no one knows exactly what causes regression, but according to developmental-behavioral pediatrician Paul Wang, We understand now that regression is common. It starts early, and it can affect many different developmental skills.”

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Research Early Signs And Treatment

There’s been widespread controversy about a possible connection between vaccines and the soaring autism rates. Some parents of children whose autistic symptoms first appeared shortly after their measles-mumps-rubella immunization are convinced the shot was the cause, but repeated studies have failed to find scientific evidence. Although one small, heavily publicized British study published in 1998 suggested a link, 10 of the 13 authors publicly retracted the findings in March 2004, saying they were unreliable. The study, lead by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, only studied a small sample of 12 kids, eight of whom were diagnosed with autism. By early 2010, the same British journal, The Lancet, that published his findings retracted his study and in January 2011, the British Medical Journal publicly denounced Dr. Wakefield’s research as “fraudulent.” The British Medical Journal announced that Dr. Wakefield had “falsified data” and tampered with his research results to give the MMR vaccine bad publicity. At the time of his study, Dr. Wakefield had been involved in a lawsuit against the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine and would have gained money if he’d won, making his research an obvious conflict of interest.

Famous People With Autism

Working with people with autism: the autistic perspective

There are many famous people with autism. They include athletes, actors, inventors, business leaders, authors and artists.

There are about 180 famous autistic people I found as part of our research on Ongigs series on neurodiversity. I felt inspired to list all these amazing people in one place!

Disclaimers: This list includes famous people with Autism who have been diagnosed and those who have been reported or rumored to fall somewhere on the Autism spectrum. I do my best to list resources for any questionable ones and welcome feedback, additions and edits! I am not an expert on autism.

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How Likely Is It To Have A Child With Autism

Children born to older parents are at a higher risk for having autism. Parents who have a child with ASD have a 2 to 18 percent chance of having a second child who is also affected. Studies have shown that among identical twins, if one child has autism, the other will be affected about 36 to 95 percent of the time.

Epilepsy Is Most Common In Autistic Children Over The Age Of Nine

In a nutshell, epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by recurrent episodes of seizures and associated with abnormal activity in the brain. Autism spectrum disorder statistics show that epilepsy is most common in autistic children over the age of nine. Whats more, autistic children over the age of ten have a 2.35 times higher chance of being diagnosed with epilepsy than younger children.

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Vaccination And Autism Statistics Reaffirm That Vaccines Dont Cause Autism

A significant number of studies have reaffirmed again and again that there is no link between vaccines and ASD. A 2013 CDC study, in particular, looked at the number of antigens from vaccines in the first two years of life. The results showed that the total number of antigens from vaccines was the same between autistic and non-autistic children, drawing a clear line between autism facts and myths.

Reduced Emotion In Facial Expressions

Why genetic tests matter for autistic people

Facial expressions are a nonverbal way to communicate thoughts and feelings.

Research on emotional expression in autistic infants is limited, but in studies involving school-age children, researchers have found that autistic children display less emotion through facial expressions than children with nonautistic development.

That doesnt necessarily mean autistic children are feeling less emotion, just that less of it shows on their faces when they do.

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Understanding The Relationship Between Asd And Gender Dysphoria May Provide A Path Forward

On a practical level, understanding that ASD and gender dysphoria are linked in some way has offered practical benefits. Today, teenagers who go in to gender clinics for counseling or treatment are routinely screened for ASD, the result of new clinical guidelines issued in 2016.

Although its too soon to say what the results of this screening might be, it is likely that it will help catch undiagnosed cases of ASD and allow more kids with autism to get the care and resources they need.

The hope is that a better understanding of the relationship between the two conditions may also lead to the mental health community being more sympathetic to the plight of these individuals, and eventually result in better access to treatment for people like Kayden Clarke.

Rates Are On The Rise

An estimated 1 in 40 children in this country have autism to some degree, according to a recent study from Pediatrics based on 2016 data. That’s about 1.5 million children between the ages 3 to 17. Nationwide, autism strikes three to four times more boys than girls the rates are about the same for kids of all races.

Although there seems to be an autism epidemic, the Pediatrics study attributes the increasing prevalence to more inclusive reporting. The definition of autism has been expanded in the past decade to include a wider spectrum of problems with communication and social interaction. “Ten years ago, many children with mild autism were simply not diagnosed,” says Adrian Sandler, M.D., a developmental-behavioral pediatrician at Mission Children’s Hospital, in Asheville, North Carolina, and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on children with disabilities. Plus, there are more state and federal programs for autistic kids, giving doctors an incentive to diagnose and refer them. However, there may be additional, unknown reasons for the spike in autism rates, and researchers are investigating everything from environmental toxins to viruses to food allergies.

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Newsround Explores Mental Health

Because autism affects people differently, some people don’t need a lot of help, but others might need extra support throughout their life.

For someone who is autistic, everyday life can be confusing and chaotic.

Their brain works differently so just communicating with people can be really hard.

Simple things like talking to other people, and reading people’s body language and expressions can be difficult. Some people will be able to speak, while others may not be able to speak at all. They might use sign language to help with this.

An autistic person might seem like they’re not interested in people and find it hard to make friends and meet new people.

They might also find it hard to use their imagination or be creative, so made-up games in the playground might be quite difficult for someone with autism to take part in.

Many autistic people find comfort in having a routine, so it is quite common to want to repeat things. Doing the same things every day can help – for example, playing the same games or eating meals at the same time – or they may engage in repetitive behaviours like turning light switches on and off, opening and closing doors, or lining up objects.

It can be frustrating not being able to communicate in the way that they might like, so this frustration might come out through their behaviour.

Autistic Children Are Highly Creative

Why People are Born Different | Disabilities Autism Special Needs [Ask Master Anything]

Autism facts point out that autistic children might showcase great creativity. Following that, having creative outlets early on might help autistic people unlock and realize their potential.

As a parent, one could try introducing the following activities in their childs day:

  • Making music with toy instruments
  • Reading a book for fun
  • Dancing freely or by following a tutorial or video
  • Tracing shapes and objects for reference or drawing freehand
  • Coloring.

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What Causes Autism Spectrum Disorder

No one knows exactly what causes ASD. It probably has something to do with DNA the genes passed down from your parents and other things, like infections or toxins that change the way the brain develops. Problems during pregnancy and around the time of birth raise the chance of getting autism.

Vaccines do not cause autism.

Do Vaccinations Cause Autism Spectrum Disorder

No. Vaccines your baby gets do not cause autism. You may have heard about vaccines that contain thimerosal, a chemical that has mercury in it. Research shows that thimerosal in vaccines does not cause autism. Thimerosal is no longer used in vaccines, except in some flu shots. But you can get a thimerosal-free flu vaccine for your child if you want. If you need more information, talk to your babys provider.

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What’s It Like To Have Autism Spectrum Disorder

A kid with autism might have trouble:

  • talking and learning the meaning of words
  • making friends or fitting in
  • dealing with changes
  • dealing with loud noises, bright lights, or crowds

Kids also might move in an unusual way or do the same thing over and over .

A kid with autism may have a little trouble with these things, or a lot. Some kids need only a little bit of help, and others might need a lot of help with learning and doing everyday stuff.

Some People Use Other Names For Autism

Why Are Some Born with Autism and Not Others?

There are other names for autism used by some people, such as:

  • autism spectrum disorder the medical name for autism
  • autism spectrum condition used instead of ASD by some people
  • Asperger’s used by some people to describe autistic people with average or above average intelligence

Unlike some people with autism, people with Asperger’s do not have a learning disability.

Some people call this “high-functioning” autism.

Doctors do not diagnose people with Asperger’s anymore.

But if you were diagnosed with it before, this will stay as your diagnosis.

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What Causes Autism And Why Are More And More Kids Being Diagnosed With It

Does a friend or family member have a child with autism? Autism rates seem to be skyrocketing. Among children who are 8 years old, autism has nearly doubled from 1 in 150 to 1 in 68 for children born in 2002.

Autism is part of a larger group of related conditions, called autism spectrum disorders , all of which usually involve delayed verbal communication and difficulties in social interactions. Studies suggest that children with autism tend to have other problems with how their brain functions, with as many as 20-30% developing seizures or epilepsy.

What If My Friend Has Autism Spectrum Disorder

Some people with ASD do not feel that they have a disorder and don’t want to change. They’re proud of who they are and they want to be accepted, even though they may have different strengths and weaknesses than most other people.

All people deserve respect. But kids with ASD may be teased, bullied, or left out because they’re different. Bullying and teasing are never the right way to treat other people, but it may be hard to be a friend with someone who has ASD.

Kids with ASD often don’t understand playful jokes. You may need to be very clear when you communicate with someone who has ASD.

Try to be patient and kind. Remember how hard it might be for the person with ASD to understand how to be a friend. Stand up for classmates who are bullied. Tell adults, so they can help protect kids who are bullied.

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Early Treatment Is Crucial

There is no known cure for autism, but intensive therapy helps a child learn a wide range of skills from making eye contact to hugging to having a conversation. And the sooner a child begins, the better. A panel of experts convened by the National Academy of Sciences in 2001 recommended that children should have 25 hours of therapy per week as soon as autism is suspected. Because children with autism have very different behaviors and abilities, the most effective approach takes into account a child’s unique challenges and encourages healthy development through play, rather than just trying to change specific symptoms. “Intervention can take many forms, from going to a regular preschool to a parent’s working with her child over the course of a normal day to direct therapies from well-trained teachers and professionals all depending on the child,” Dr. Lord says.

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