World Autism Aware­ness Day (WAAD) is cel­e­brat­ed an­nu­al­ly dur­ing the month of April. It aims to high­light the hur­dles that peo­ple with autism and oth­ers liv­ing with autism face dai­ly. Autism is gain­ing more un­der­stand­ing. The word “autism” comes from the Greek word “au­tos,” which means “self.” It de­scribes con­di­tions in which a per­son is re­moved from so­cial in­ter­ac­tion. In oth­er words, he be­comes an “iso­lat­ed self.”

Autism, or autism spec­trum dis­or­der (ASD), refers to a broad range of con­di­tions char­ac­terised by chal­lenges with so­cial skills, repet­i­tive be­hav­iours, speech and non­ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion. There is not one autism but many sub­types, most in­flu­enced by a com­bi­na­tion of ge­net­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors. Be­cause autism is a spec­trum dis­or­der, each per­son with autism has a dis­tinct set of strengths and chal­lenges.

The ways in which peo­ple with autism learn, think and prob­lem-solve can range from high­ly skilled to se­vere­ly chal­lenged. Some peo­ple with ASD may re­quire sig­nif­i­cant sup­port in their dai­ly lives, while oth­ers may need less sup­port and, in some cas­es, live en­tire­ly in­de­pen­dent­ly.

In­di­ca­tors of autism usu­al­ly ap­pear by age two or three. Some as­so­ci­at­ed de­vel­op­ment de­lays can even ap­pear as ear­ly as 18 months. Re­search shows that ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion leads to pos­i­tive out­comes lat­er in life for autis­tic per­sons.

Com­mon symp­toms in­clude: lack of eye con­tact a nar­row range of in­ter­ests or in­tense in­ter­est in cer­tain top­ics rep­e­ti­tion of words or phras­es, rock­ing back and forth, or flip­ping a lever high sen­si­tiv­i­ty to sounds, touch­es, smells, or sights that seem or­di­nary to oth­er peo­ple not look­ing at or lis­ten­ing to oth­er peo­ple or not look­ing at things when an­oth­er per­son points at them not want­i­ng to be held or cud­dled prob­lems un­der­stand­ing or us­ing speech, ges­tures, fa­cial ex­pres­sions, or tone of voice talk­ing in a sing-song, flat, or ro­bot­ic voice hav­ing trou­ble adapt­ing to changes in rou­tine seizures may oc­cur in some but may not present un­til ado­les­cence.

The ex­act cause of autism is un­clear but it can stem from prob­lems in parts of your brain that in­ter­pret sen­so­ry in­put and process lan­guage. Autism is four times more com­mon in boys than in girls. It can hap­pen in peo­ple of any race, eth­nic­i­ty, or so­cial back­ground. Fam­i­ly in­come, lifestyle, or ed­u­ca­tion­al lev­el doesn’t af­fect a child’s risk of autism.

Autism runs in fam­i­lies, so cer­tain com­bi­na­tions of genes may in­crease a child’s risk. A child with an old­er par­ent has a high­er risk of autism. If a preg­nant woman is ex­posed to cer­tain drugs or chem­i­cals, like al­co­hol or an­ti-seizure med­ica­tions, her child is more like­ly to be autis­tic.

Oth­er risk fac­tors in­clude ma­ter­nal meta­bol­ic con­di­tions such as di­a­betes and obe­si­ty. Re­search has al­so linked autism to un­treat­ed phenylke­tonuria (al­so called PKU, a meta­bol­ic dis­or­der caused by the ab­sence of an en­zyme) and Rubel­la (Ger­man measles).

Please note that there is no ev­i­dence that vac­ci­na­tions cause autism. More than a dozen stud­ies have tried to find a link. All were re­fut­ed and dis­missed.

Dr Ray­mala Ma­haraj

MBBS (UWI)