miércoles, 27 de junio de 2007

Inside autism (By Miriam Falco, CNN)


What´s Autism?
Probably many people have heard this word, but they don´t know more than they could see in "Rain Man".
Autism is a type of the disorder of the group that called "pervasive developmental disorders" (PDD) or autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). This are more common than disorders more known by the people, like Down syndrome for example. And are clasificated in five categories:
- Autism
- Asperger syndrome
- Pervasive disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS).
- Rett syndrome
- Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD)
Last two disorders are more rare.
Profesionals (and parents, that usually are the first that see something wrong with their kid) believe that the children born with Autism and their principal difficulties are the social interaction, communication and behavior.
Much parents share the experience to have a son or a daughter with Autism, and the difficult that it is. An organization (Autism speaks) made a video that ilustrate how is the life with this children, and shows parent´s difficults and concerns.
The diagnosis is difficult, but is important that be early, because the early intervention can change the brain´s develop
But it´s important that you know that there isn´t just one type of autism or one treatment to it. And the mojority of them aren´t medical treatment but educational. This is a big difficult, because some schools can´t give to this children that they need.
How I said previously, two children with autism are different, but parents share they experiences (maybe this could help to other persons). Susan´s son couldn´t learn how to write, and she with the Brian´s Occupational Terapist made a video and sell it in the Web.
Researchers are studing about the genetic component of Autism, the parts of the brain that aren´t communicating, the environment factors and how to test it.