Advice and Helpful Tips

2.5 Coping with autism.

I've seen that many people tend to think of autism as being one set thing where the symptoms are the same for everyone. Besides that, there are many other misconceptions about autism and Aspergers, and I want to get rid of them. So, let's start by defining what autism is.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders, which means that they affect the brains and are developed mainly before birth. The disorders can cause problems such as issues with communication, limited interests, sensitivity to loud sounds or bright lights, and repeated or odd behaviours.

As autism is a broad spectrum, there are several different disorders. But the ones most commonly talked about are Autism disorder and Asperger's syndrome. Aspergers is different from general autism because it does not include difficulties with language as a symptom. In addition to that, Aspergers is often "milder" than autism; meaning that the symptoms do not present as strongly.

Usually, autism symptoms can be seen in children as young as a year old. But they may also appear later. The most common symptoms in young children are difficulties with speech or being nonverbal, avoiding eye contact, being either very sensitive or not reacting to loud noise, lights, and other sensory stimulation, preferring to play alone, and disliking physical contact.

As well as these, people on the spectrum will often also have very specific interests (such as being interested in, say, only one breed of dogs. Or having interests in a certain type of airplane.) They usually have certain behaviours that they repeat whenever they are feeling some strong emotion. These behaviours are called stimming, and they can include things like holding their arms up in front of their chest, flapping their hands, etc. Speaking of emotions, many people on the spectrum also have difficulty recognizing their own or other people's emotions. This will also make it difficult for them to understand sarcasm.

Keep in mind that even if a child has these symptoms, they may not be autistic. If you have concerns about your own child, please talk to a professional instead of making a diagnosis yourself and raising them up as autistic. If you're concerned about someone else's child, talk to them about it and encourage them to talk to a professional if the symptoms are a big concern. Keep in mind that even though this has been focused on children, people on the spectrum will have these symptoms for their whole life, and not just in early childhood. But the symptoms always appear at a young age.

If you research autism, you may run into the terms low functioning and high functioning. Low functioning autism means that the person with it has severe difficulties in daily life and needs help and support. High functioning means that the symptoms are not as severe and they do not need as much, if any, extra help in their life. Keep in mind that these are not professional terms, and different people have different opinions on what can be classed as "high" or "low".

Autism can be diagnosed by pediatricians or psychologists. There are many different tests for diagnosing, and the person being examined may need to go through some kind of therapy before they can get a diagnosis.

Once the diagnosis has been made, the diagnosed person may have to go to therapy so that they can learn how to understand their emotions and communicate with others better. They can also find better ways of stimming if the ones they have learned are socially unacceptable or somehow harmful. However, if they only have mild symptoms and can live life normally, therapy may not be needed.

Autism is a highly misunderstood condition. Due to autistic people avoiding eye contact and having difficulties in understanding emotions and sarcasm, they often struggle with gaining friends and in general interacting with other people. This leads to people who have not been educated assuming that autistic people have low intelligence, although this is usually not true. And the fact that "autistic" is sometimes used as an insult is definitely not helping. (Seriously. Do not use it as an insult. Ever.)

People on the spectrum (especially low functioning) will sometimes need different methods of education and other kinds of assistance in their lives. Currently, as autism is not understood properly, these things can't always be provided. So we must work together to make it more understood and better known.

Sources:
https://www.healthline.com/health/autism
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/facts.html
https://www.autism-society.org/what-is/
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autism/
https://www.autism.org.uk/about/what-is/asd.aspx
https://www.autismparentingmagazine.com/low-functioning-autism/
https://www.verywellhealth.com/high-and-low-functioning-autism-260599

This chapter was written by Melle (Melledonna): go and thank her for her hard work on this!!