Autism, The Silent Spectrum - Autismo, o espectro silencioso - Panzine 5 - Pantv

Autism, a neurological disorder which affects the ability of people in how to communicate and how to interact with others. With a possible detection only when a baby is two years old, but without knowing what really causes it. There are hypotheses suggesting environmental issues allied with genetics would be the triggering mixture for autism. Today autism affects 1 in 154 babies born in Canada. And 1 in 90 baby boys is autistic at some degree. Brazil doesn't have yet official statistic numbers about autism. But in North America autism percentage grows everyday. Children with some degree of autism... Need supervision, but others need help 24/7. The voices of these silent innocents are there parents. Right now we are in a very delicate situation because my twins were diagnosed with autism. At first we were shocked, we knew nothing about it. We only knew about extreme, severe cases of autism. We were desperate for awhile, until we realize every autistic child are very different from each other, with different degrees. It didn't alleviate us at all, they were diagnosed one year ago, but we felt a little better when we decided to do something to help them. Mothers of autistic children have to work with their little ones every minute. Everything she will do with her children is a work, even the most simplest thing; like sitting, eating, biting, swallowing.. Everything little thing is a task. To give you an example; you sit a child in the table and tell her to feed herself while you are doing something else, it's something pretty common right? But the mother of the autistic child has to teach him step-by-step. Your family, your family will help you. If you don't have family members you'll have to help yourself, as I said before, the government gives you a financial help, other than that - even with that financial help it's hard to arrange the therapy appointments. For example, your son was diagnosed with autism and he needs a speech pathologist right away- because he doesn't speak- even having documents to proof your son needs, you have a long waiting list. There are parents that completely loose their minds, and we understand why they feel that way. Where are they going to look for help? They get help from other parents, like the groups promoted at the Geneva Center, for example, where they share their stories. There are severe cases of autism to light cases. Every case is different, and that's a communication problem, it's not about intelligence. An autistic child can be very intelligent, but he has communication problems, living in their own world, isolating themselves, thinking in a very different way from the rest of us. The challenge for the autistic children parents always will be to proof how their child is competent completing tasks, because sometimes with their parents the autistic child behaves differently when they are away from their parents, and the mother will reinforce the child can complete that task, knowing how capable their kid is. The mother knows how capable their child is. That's the challege for the rest of their lifes. I'm worrie he may not have a normal life, living alone or finding a girlfriend. For me that's the most serious issue. Finding friends, going to school and even being treated like an insane, or a nerd. Those are our worries. As parents we always think,"will he be a lonely person, antisocial?" It' s very important to treat our kids in this initial state. We heard that with intense care for two years they will evolve and reach the other kids. If we wait until they become six, we will need six years of treatment to reach that point. In my opinion autism is a lack of information and you cure it with information and intervention. If someone today is diagnosed with autism and I can get a hold of that person I would tell that person that his/her world won't collapse if you do what we're doing. Find a good professional to help you, to visit you you'll see a huge behavioral change. The worst part is gone, because you know what your child has, now you have to treat him. We're not waiting, we're doing what is necessary to help our kids. Some people prefer to wait, but time passing by. My son is improving and I say that there is cure, my twins are improving a lot, specially my girl. Maybe in two years someone will tell me she doesn't have autism, or that she has a very little spectrum of it. For now we know she's autistic. The child was diagnosed; the first stage is crying and lamenting about the fact, not accepting it, anger, and finally accepting. This is the most common reactions on special children parents. These phases could be shorter or longer, it varies from family to family... There are parents that never accept and others that complain for the rest of their life. And do nothing about the problem. These families need emotional support for these phases -lamenting, not acceptation, disgust, frustration. These are tough moments and parents need to recover to help their protected ones, cause there is no cure.