Can Autism Be Cured
There is no cure for autism, but experts agree that the best way to manage symptoms and develop independence skills is through ABA therapy. Its important to remember that autism spectrum disorder is a complicated condition that presents differently in every individual.
As research continues to discover the cause of the disorder prenatal condition, genetics and other unknown factors health providers should focus on helping people with ASD live full and satisfying lives. At Therapeutic Pathways, our therapists and behavior technicians share the goal of improving the lives of our clients through science-backed, individualized behavior analytic treatment.
You cant get rid of autism, but you can help your child or family member enjoy a higher quality of life. The therapists and behavior technicians at Therapeutic Pathways want your loved one to thrive, and we work closely with every client to make that happen.
Below, weve outlined some of the treatment options available for your child or family member with ASD. Some of the symptoms we work to reduce include:
What Are The Signs Of Autism Spectrum Disorder
Signs of ASD range from mild to severely disabling, and every person is different. The following signs are considered to be red flags that indicate your young child may be at risk for autism. If your child shows any of the following signs, please get in touch with your childs healthcare provider to discuss a referral for an autism evaluation.
The signs include the following:
- Your child doesnt respond to their name being called at all or responds inconsistently.
- Your child doesnt smile widely or make warm, joyful expressions by the age of 6 months.
- Your child doesnt engage in smiling, making sounds and making faces with you or other people by the age of 9 months.
- Your child doesnt babble by 12 months.
- No back-and-forth gestures such as showing, pointing, reaching or waving by 12 months.
- No words by 16 months.
- No meaningful, two-word phrases by 24 months.
- Any loss of speech, babbling or social skills at any age.
Is There A Link Between Autism And Biofilms
Peta Cohen, a pioneer in treating autism with a biomedical and nutritional approach, has found evidence of biofilms in autistic patients. When she disrupts the biofilm in these patients, she sees a huge offload of heavy metals in the urine and stool. Autistic individuals often have elevated mercury and lead levels . Bacteria arent choosy about which minerals they sequester during biofilm construction, and so Dr. Cohens explanation is that these patients also suffer from GI biofilms loaded with mercury and other heavy metals. Her experiences are as of yet only anecdotal a PubMed search for autism and biofilm yields zero results. Check out my podcast here for what I believe are underlying causes of autism.
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Tip : Find Nonverbal Ways To Connect
Connecting with a child with ASD can be challenging, but you dont need to talkor even touchin order to communicate and bond. You communicate by the way you look at your child, by the tone of your voice, your body language and possibly the way you touch your child. Your child is also communicating with you, even if he or she never speaks. You just need to learn the language.
Look for nonverbal cues. If you are observant and aware, you can learn to pick up on the nonverbal cues that children with ASD use to communicate. Pay attention to the kinds of sounds they make, their facial expressions, and the gestures they use when theyre tired, hungry, or want something.
Figure out the motivation behind the tantrum. Its only natural to feel upset when you are misunderstood or ignored, and its no different for children with ASD. When children with ASD act out, its often because youre not picking up on their nonverbal cues. Throwing a tantrum is their way of communicating their frustration and getting your attention.
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What Is The Outlook For People With Autism Spectrum Disorder
In many cases, the symptoms of ASD become less pronounced as a child gets older. Parents of children with ASD may need to be flexible and ready to adjust treatment as needed for their child.
People with ASD may go on to live typical lives, but there is often need for continued services and support as they age. The needs depend on the severity of the symptoms. For most, it’s a lifelong condition that may require ongoing supports.
A note from Cleveland Clinic
Through research, there has been much that has been learned about autism spectrum disorder over the past 20 years. There is ongoing active research on the causes of ASD, early detection and diagnosis, prevention and treatments.
Last reviewed by a Cleveland Clinic medical professional on 12/29/2020.
References
Helping Your Child With Autism Thrive Tip : Provide Structure And Safety
Learning all you can about autism and getting involved in treatment will go a long way toward helping your child. Additionally, the following tips will make daily home life easier for both you and your child with ASD:
Be consistent. Children with ASD have a hard time applying what theyve learned in one setting to others, including the home. For example, your child may use sign language at school to communicate, but never think to do so at home. Creating consistency in your childs environment is the best way to reinforce learning. Find out what your childs therapists are doing and continue their techniques at home. Explore the possibility of having therapy take place in more than one place in order to encourage your child to transfer what he or she has learned from one environment to another. Its also important to be consistent in the way you interact with your child and deal with challenging behaviors.
Stick to a schedule. Children with ASD tend to do best when they have a highly-structured schedule or routine. Again, this goes back to the consistency they both need and crave. Set up a schedule for your child, with regular times for meals, therapy, school, and bedtime. Try to keep disruptions to this routine to a minimum. If there is an unavoidable schedule change, prepare your child for it in advance.
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Behavior And Communication Approaches
According to reports by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Research Council, behavior and communication approaches that help children with ASD are those that provide structure, direction, and organization for the child in addition to family participation .
Applied Behavior Analysis A notable treatment approach for people with ASD is called applied behavior analysis . ABA has become widely accepted among healthcare professionals and used in many schools and treatment clinics. ABA encourages positive behaviors and discourages negative behaviors to improve a variety of skills. The childs progress is tracked and measured.
There are different types of ABA. Here are some examples:
- Discrete Trial Training DTT is a style of teaching that uses a series of trials to teach each step of a desired behavior or response. Lessons are broken down into their simplest parts, and positive reinforcement is used to reward correct answers and behaviors. Incorrect answers are ignored.
- Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention This is a type of ABA for very young children with ASD, usually younger than 5 and often younger than 3. EIBI uses a highly structured teaching approach to build positive behaviors and reduce unwanted behaviors . EIBI takes place in a one-on-one adult-to-child environment under the supervision of a trained professional.
- Early Start Denver Model
There are other therapies that can be part of a complete treatment program for a child with ASD:
Recommended Changes For The Dsm
Before I finish today, I wanted to look at some of the possible changes which could help improve the current way in which autism diagnosis is made under the DSM-5. These recommendations are stolen adapted from discussions which I have read in online academic journals. To ensure that everyone gets their deserved credit, I will be including clickable links to the original documents in bold red:
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Observing The General Characteristics
What Is The Diagnostic Manual Of Mental Disorders
So Im going out on a limb here, but Im guessing the question most of you are currently asking is, since when wasnt Aspergers a form of autism? The answer to this is simple: 2013 The reasoning is a bit more complex.
In 2013, the world of autism was rocked when the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was released. If this means as little to you as it did to me, all you need to know is that the DSM has been dubbed the psychiatrists bible, and 5 years ago it was rewritten.
From changing the very name of autism from Autistic Disorder, to Autistic Spectrum Disorder, to changing the way in which its diagnosed. Once the DSM-5 was released, there were very few similarities between what we had come to know of autism, and what it is now .
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Autism: They Said Bleach Would Cure My Daughter
Ive had people offer me products to kill the autism bleach, salts, supplements.
For Yvonne Odukwe, a Nigerian living in Newport, community stigma around her daughters autism is a barrier but its only half of a double whammy.
She and others say black, Asian and minority ethnic people can also face poor engagement from authorities.
The Welsh Government said its national autism team regularly engages with BAME communities among other steps.
Its a double layer, said Yvonne, mother of 19-year-old Jasmine.
Im fighting the mainstream and then Im also fighting my community because theyre not accepting me and, in many cases, blaming and shaming me.
Autism is a lifelong development disability which affects how people see, hear and interact with the world.
Yvonne, a mother-of-three, said that like many parents of autistic children, shed had to fight to get Jasmine support, but many parents from backgrounds like hers must also overcome a code of secrecy in the community.
Theres that fear and unease something we dont know, we dont accept, she said.
So because of that, theres the stigma. You dont talk about autism, its kind of like a shame to even admit that you have a child with autism.
Yvonne said she had heard stories in relation to different Asian and African communities where autism was attributed to witchcraft, curses or bad parenting.
The Stigma Of Autism: When All Eyes Are Upon You
What parent of a child with autism hasn’t had one of those moments in public? Your child is screaming, spinning or making noises, and you’re on the receiving end of disapproving stares or outright hostility from The Annoyed. “Control your child,” The Annoyed says coldly. Maybe he assumes your child lacks discipline maybe he recognizes the disability but blames you for subjecting him to such behavior. The Annoyed can be a stranger, an acquaintance or cousin Pat.
At that moment, you feel the stigma that societies around the globe attach to autism. In different ways and to different degrees, people in many countries view autism as a source of disappointment, annoyance, shame or worse. According to some researchers, stigma may keep families from seeking a diagnosis and services for their children, from participating fully in their communities, and from enjoying the same quality of life as their neighbors. Simply put, stigma influences public health.1
Stigma is born of culture, so it may look different depending on whether you are living in South Korea, Australia, the West Bank, Japan or the United States. Pope Francis recently told Roman Catholics worldwide to help with “breaking down the isolation and, in many cases, the stigma burdening people with autism spectrum disorders, and just as often their families.”2
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Why Are People With Autism At Higher Risk Of Covid
The higher risks of COVID-19 that researchers found in people with autism arent due to the developmental or intellectual disabilities themselves, but rather because people with them are more likely to live in a group setting, be unable to communicate about having symptoms, or have trouble understanding or following safety measures, according to the .
Sometimes it is difficult for people with ASD to wear masks and keep social distancing, themselves and others at increased risk of spreading or acquiring COVID-19, says Robert Hendren, DO, a psychiatrist and the director of the program for research on neurodevelopmental and translational outcomes at the University of California in San Francisco.
Early symptoms may be overlooked because people with ASD may not be able to express their discomforts, such as sore throat. If someone with ASD gets COVID-19, they may have a very difficult time being in the hospital and receiving treatments that are unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and potentially scary, Dr. Hendren explains.
Further, and as noted by the authors of the NEJM Catalyst report, people with intellectual disabilities are more likely to have other health problems at the same time that put them at higher risk for infection and COVID-19 disease, such as heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. Banks says this is true of people with ASD as well.
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A Parents Guide To Autism Treatment And Support
If youve recently learned that your child has or might have autism spectrum disorder, youre probably wondering and worrying about what comes next. No parent is ever prepared to hear that a child is anything other than happy and healthy, and an ASD diagnosis can be particularly frightening. You may be unsure about how to best help your child, or confused by conflicting treatment advice. Or you may have been told that ASD is an incurable, lifelong condition, leaving you concerned that nothing you do will make a difference.
While it is true that ASD is not something a person simply grows out of, there are many treatments that can help children acquire new skills and overcome a wide variety of developmental challenges. From free government services to in-home behavioral therapy and school-based programs, assistance is available to meet your childs special needs and help them learn, grow, and thrive in life.
When youre looking after a child with ASD, its also important to take care of yourself. Being emotionally strong allows you to be the best parent you can be to your child in need. These parenting tips can help by making life with an autistic child easier.
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