Disclaimer: the purpose of this article is to share some information with the readers. It is by no means comprehensive enough to cover all aspects of the journey of a child or young person and their family. The author would encourage getting expert advice if you have concerns regarding any area of your child or loved ones development. In the UK if your child is under 5 you can do this by speaking to a health visitor or your GP.

“World Autism Acceptance Day is an internationally recognised day on 2 April every year, encouraging Member States of the United Nations to take measures to raise acceptance about people with autism throughout the world”

As a Speech and Language Therapist in my day-to-day work I’m often reminded through my everyday interactions that we still have a long way to go with regards to understanding autism as a community. When approached to write this article for World Autism Day, I was reminded that I have a role to play with regards to raising awareness of behalf of all the children and young people I work with. In hope that the world will be more accepting of to them through the knowledge shared and they will be met by a kinder world. As a Speech and Language Therapist it’s not unusual for me to be the first professional to be involved with a family and to be querying difficulties that accumulatively look like autism. The initial reason for this contact will often be very delayed language, as the title suggests thinking speech, language and communication is what I spend my days doing (yes, I do have the best job in the world).

What is autism?

For those who don’t know, autism is a life-long neurodevelopmental condition, this means it can’t be ‘cured’ although may look different across the life-span of the individual. The child or young person with autism have differences in the way their brain is wired, these will come to light in the early developmental period. As a result, the way in which in-coming information is processed is different, the world can look and feel vastly different for the individual with autism. Although it’s important to remember autism is a neurodevelopmental condition, we currently diagnose and recognise autism through the behaviours that result in those brain differences, the behaviours we can see of that child or young person. Children and young people with autism  show signs of severely delayed lanaguge, or a regression in their ability to use language to communicate, i.e. a child may have started saying a few words but then stopped.

Language learning is in part a social process and children with autism have difficulties with social communication and social interaction which contributes to this. On the other hand, a child or young person with autism may have language but will find it challenging to use this language to communicate for social purposes, e.g. they may repeat lanuguge they have heard being used but not in the appropriate context.

 With the families I work with, I typically look at ways to better understand ‘how’ and ‘why’ the child or young person is currently communicating. Its often like being a detective, the idea is in the absence of words. A child will typically be communicating in idiosyncratic ways, we just need to get better at recognising and noticing those attempts when they occur.

Another point of focus I use when working with my parents to help them, is to work through how the child or young person is regulating their emotions. We typically have two ways in which we regulate, one we regulate using others, this could look like phoning a friend, hugging your partner, anything that involves another in the process of us regaining our equilibrium. Secondly, we self-regulate, e.g. go for a run, have a relaxing bath, read etc. In a world that can be very perplexing for a child who has autism they will often have adopted various strategies to cope; typically lots of self-regulating instead of mutual regulating (this requires more sophisticated emotional processing and understanding of other people’s social intentions etc.). These can often present as rigid and uncompromising behaviours, e.g. insisting on walking to the park/ nursery in the same way every time. On occasions where this isn’t possible or is challenged often the child will have a ‘meltdown’. This may be another behaviour like pacing. Every child is an individual so these questions have to be explored within the context of each particular child and family.

Another important component of autism a child may experience, is a difference in sensory processing. So the 5 senses are experienced differently, e.g. their touch sense may be highly sensitive and they can only tolerate certain fabrics on their body.

For others, touch may be under responsive and they may seek that deep pressure from actions like hugging. Some children will experience sound differently, where the banging of a door, people talking, and the television on in the background may all be received at the same volume. So a child may cover their ears and appear distressed. As a result, the world can be a very challenging place for some of our children with autism.

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Related

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Talking to your family about your mental health

Dealing with anxiety

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Parents and families struggle

Children and young people with autism can sometimes challenge the things that we hold so dear and central to the ‘human experience’ our defining traits, we are social beings. However, not forgetting in the Quran God talks about ‘teaching Adam the name’s of things’ [2:31]. We just have to work a little harder to help our little ones with autism to do their learning and their talking. And that’s okay.  Social and cultural realities can also pose a barrier to families and parents being able to accept and be open to a potential diagnosis of autism. We certainly have work to do!

More males are autistic?

Currently there are more males with a diagnosis of autism than females. Although there are lots of conversations around the acknowledgement that we are perhaps much better at detecting autism in boys than we are in girls, which perhaps underlies this discrepency. (This is potentially due to historical factors,  which there just aren’t enough words or space, to go in to detail for this article!)

Useful links: http://www.autism.org.uk