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Saturday, November 22, 2003
Autism: What parents should know (First of two parts)
By Henrylito D. Tacio
TALLAHASSEE, Florida -- As an infant, Alan was playful and affectionate. At 6 months old, he could sit up and crawl. He began to walk and say words at 10 months and could count by 13 months.
One day, in his 18th month, his mother Aida found him sitting alone in the kitchen, repeatedly spinning the wheels of her vacuum cleaner with such persistence and concentration, he didn't respond when she called.
From that day on, "it was as if someone had pulled a shade over him," Aida recalls. He stopped talking and relating to others. He became fixated on electric lights, running around the house turning them on and off. When made to stop, he threw a tantrum, kicking and biting anyone within reach.
Like the American Olympic gold medallist Dominique Dawes, Alan is suffering from a brain disorder called autism. Isolated in worlds of their own, people with autism appear indifferent and remote and are unable to form emotional bonds with others.
"Autism is found in every country and region of the world, and in families of all racial, ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds," says the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.
"Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. The result of a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain, autism impacts the normal development of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills," says the Autism Society of America, based in Bethesda, Maryland.
Autism is considered "a spectrum disorder." This means that the symptoms and characteristics of autism can present themselves in a wide variety of combinations, from mild to severe. Although autism is defined by a certain set of behaviors, children and adults can exhibit any combination of the behaviors in any degree of severity. Two children, both with the same diagnosis, can act very differently from one another and have varying skills.
No one has precise figures on the prevalence of autism among world populations. But autism is a time bomb waiting to happen, experts claim. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that the disorder may be occurring in as many as three or four per 1,000 births.
Other surveys put a range on the figure from one in 500 Americans to one in 2,500. In Great Britain, 2,000 children are being diagnosed every year.
No matter where autism strikes in the world, three out of every four victims are male. "No one knows why it is common in boys than girls," the US autism society points out.
The world came to know about autism through the award-winning movie, "Rain Man.' In this Barry Levinson flick, Dustin Hoffman (Raymond) played the autistic brother of Tom Cruise (Charlie). In the Philippine cinema, their autistic son almost destroyed the marriage of the couple (portrayed superbly by Vilma Santos and Christopher de Leon) in Ipagpatawad Mo.
Unfortunately, there's no blood test for autism," says Dr. Amy Wetherby, a professor of communications disorders with the Florida State University who has studied autism in young children for more than two decades. "It's diagnosed by observing how a child behaves. But you have to know what to look for."
(November 22, 2003 issue)
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