Concerned About a Child's Development?

Sometimes children exhibit unusual behaviors between the ages of 3 to 6. While it is always best to consult your pediatrician, here are some symptoms that could indicate the onset of autism:

1.    Difficulties adapting to new care givers and or teachers
2.    The child laughs without apparent reason or at the wrong time
3.    Trouble speaking clearly. Speech should be pretty well established after the age of 3
4.   Sometimes you know the child can hear you, but he doesn't respond normally
5.   Reaction to pain doesn't appear normal as in other children
6.   The boy rejects physical attention and affection from the mother
7.    He doesn't seem to enjoy the company of other children and may even have a    tantrum
8.    He seems to fixate on a toy, such as a teddy bear
9.    He has extreme changes of mood
10.    The boy doesn't sleep or eat normally

Some of these signs may of course be due to perfectly normal circumstances, such as illness, jealousy toward a sibling, playing games, etc.. If however a parent observes that the abnormal behavior appears too frequently, he or she should immediately consult a specialist in child development.

Autism appears to target boys ten times more than girls and science has not been able to discover the exact cause, although everything seems to point to a brain abnormality. Autistic children do not seem capable of processing ambiental stimuli the way healthy children do. For example, a 14 year-old boy was afraid to touch the lawn mower because the noise it made scared him. He was eventually able to overcome the problem.

Teachers in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, on the border with Mexico, go to regular training sessions given by specialists in autism. In most cases, schools receive what is known as Asperger Syndrome children, a name that comes from the Austrian doctor who first detected the disability. A few may be placed in special units within the public school itself in sheltered environments where they are supervised constantly. These students are unable to care for themselves as they exhibit a very low level of intelligence.

Other cases of Asperger Syndrome, ASD as it is known, show just the opposite; they possess a very high intelligence quotient and may, one day, live independently. The famous case of Temple Grandin, a professsional woman who suffers from ASD, is well-known and documented, since she herself explain her own struggles to adapt to every day life.

Parents of autistic children will learn to train them in appropriate social behaviors. Every school district in the Rio Grande Valley has specialists who will advise concerned parents how to deal with autism.