Autism Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Autism - Research Paper Example From the research in this paper, it would be shown that indeed, parents play a critical role in ensuring that autistic children become manageable. Introduction Autism refers to a core disorder among the pervasive developmental disorders which evidences before age 3. The National Institute of Mental Health, NIMH describes autism as a syndrome rather than disease and also as a developmental disorder, hence its influence on growth and development aspects. This has been attributed to genetic factors, environmental causes and brain injury. It has been acknowledged as a dimension and conceived as a spectrum that causes children to have varied degrees of complications in communication, lack of imagination, exhibition of repetitive behaviors and difficulty in social interaction. The constantly revised prevalence of autism ranges between five to sixty cases for every 10,000 children aged 18 and below without the consideration of less severe forms of the disorder such as pervasive developmenta l disorders and Asperger’s disorder (Altiere and Kluge 83). McConachie and Diggle (120) cite the male to female ratio of prevalence at 4.8:1. Any chronic illness presents serious challenges to the individual and the individual’s family at large. But autism has been considered among the most challenging to manage of these disorders with various scholars citing varied challenging traits exhibited by autistic children making it difficult to offer appropriate care like that given to normal children. According to Altiere and Kluge (83), autism would be characterized by communication impairment, self-destructive and aggressive behaviors and low social functioning. In addition to language problems among such children, there would also be troublesome symptoms which include inappropriate public behavior, tantrums and self destructive behaviors. Autistic children present stressors and unique challenges to the parents due to the ambiguity in diagnosis, lack of adherence to the no rms of the society and the long duration and severity of the disorder (Altiere and Kluge 83). In as much as autism symptoms would be exhibited in early childhood, it takes long before appropriate diagnosis would be done. The process of diagnosis would normally be complicated especially when a biological marker misses, encountering such problems among medical practitioners becomes infrequent and due to the normal variations that exist in child development. Even with the diagnosis of autism, the problem of unavailability of treatment persists. Most children would be diagnosed as retarded hence the administration of the wrong approach to treatment (Kogan et al. 1398). The public knows little on autism hence the hostility and insensitivity from the public on parents of autistic children who behave inappropriately in public. The prognosis of autism has also been noted to be limited. Therefore, the important role that parents being part of the family unit would play in ensuring that autis tic conditions in their children become manageable to a larger extent should be appreciated. Even though majority of studies have focused on mother-autistic child relationship, fathers too have a parental role to play in managing autistic children. The involvement of both parents in the care of the autistic