Banyan Tree School, Sector 48 Chandigarh in association with Max Super Specialtiy Hospital, Mohali held an interactive session on Autism — the lesser known truth’.
Dr Arpinder Singh Gill, Senior consultant, Paediatrics spoke on various aspects of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) to around 60 school teachers. Dr Gill said that Autism disorders are characterised by social-interaction difficulties, communication challenges and a tendency to engage in repetitive behaviors. However, symptoms and their severity vary widely.
While autism is usually a life-long condition, all children and adults benefit from interventions, or therapies, that can reduce symptoms and increase skills and abilities. The biggest problems that such children face are social challenges, he reiterated. They may gaze at faces, turn toward voices, grasp a finger and have difficulty engaging in the give-and-take of everyday human interactions. By age three, most children have passed predictable milestones on the path to learning language.
When offered something distasteful, they can make clear — by sound or expression —that the answer is “no.” By contrast, young children with autism tend to be delayed in babbling and speaking and learning to use gestures. With therapy, however, most people with autism do learn to use spoken language and all can learn to communicate.