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Autism Research Essay

Naja Boutros
Jennifer Mastronardi
ECE 308 14F
October 23 2014
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Abstract
Throughout this essay autism in children will be explained through how they are cognitively,
socially and their play in social and classroom settings. Autism is a disorder that affects 1 in 68
children. It is a disorder that is widely accepted in our world because it is most popular and still
growing. In every child care classroom there could be more than 3 children now than 20 years
ago when it would be rare to have a child with autism in your classroom. It has become more
common to see children in classrooms with this disorder. In this essay we will be exploring the
different ways in which autism children deal with on a daily basis either at home, in social
settings or in classrooms with other children.










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Autism in Children
Have you ever had a child with autism in your classroom? As a friend? As a family member?
Autism is the most common disorder and still growing around the world. When a child is born it
is hard to detect a disorder like ASD because it is hard to differentiate between other problems
that could be wrong with the child and so you have to use tests to accurately diagnose the child
with ASD because diagnosing the child that just may be developing slower with ASD could just
make everything seem a lot worse than it really is. As they grow there will be many differences
that will easily show like their development, normal language will only develop after 25-75
words in the childs vocabulary. If there are difficulties in the language process their language
will delay and they will be behind of the other children and they will show these symptoms as
they grow older into early adulthood. With talking about language development this would lead
into their social and play skills with other children. Children with autism often have trouble with
communicating about things like what they want, whats bothering them and so on. They dont
have the social skills that are needed to have a normal conversation for hours on end because
of their development and if they are behind in their development it makes it even harder. There
have been many interventions that would help with the development of the childs
development and language to interact with others with enough research from researchers and
practitioners to understand how much development for each spectrum is needed to help the
child in this situation. Social skills in autistic children may start as early as infancy with showing
signs like not cuddling up to their caregivers when picked up or show very much affection like
hugs or kisses, the infant may cry when approached by their caregivers or anyone for that
matter because they like to be left alone most of time in their own space. As the child gets
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older these social skills will still follow them and may even develop into other social difficulties.
In another area of development which you may see that they have difficulty in would be their
play skills, they usually engage in less play than you would see with other children. When they
do play they are more focused on less complex and solitary play also they lack creativity and
have a preference when it comes to their toys. While playing they will often be repetitive like
turning a circular object, or banging an object so it lights up or makes noise but they will
consistently do this over and over. This limits the child with autism because its hard to interact
with the children who border themselves around play. As the child grow older and is now into
the preschool age it becomes even more difficult to interact with peers because the child with
autism tend to lash out in appropriate ways which the other children may not like and then
start to stay away from that certain child. Children with autism develop lack of eye contact,
problem solving, empathy and interactions which makes it harder to interact to tell the other
children that they just want to play with them because of the way they show it with a lot of
touching towards the other child or being right up in their face. It is important as the child with
autism learns to control their social skills with others. We need the child with autism to
understand that they have to be appropriate when in social settings and to understand what is
not appropriate, this will help them as they grow older to live and function in an appropriate
manner. It is also said that children with autism tend to do better in individual settings or with
just a small group with others. We really need to understand the importance in teaching the
child how to act in social settings because if not there could be consequences including poor
social skills with others, behavior and mental health issues as well. This information lets us
know that we all need social skills because it is crucial to our development in many ways and as
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we grow older it gets even more crucial as we have more things to deal with and it would
become stressful if we dont have the right credentials to be able to communicate and get
things done. Joint attention is another ability that children with autism tend to not have, this is
when the child can have their attention on one thing then switch and pay attention to another
completely different thing, and this is mostly used to share their interest with another person.
Instead the child with autism tends to just point or do something to get the persons attention
towards them. Parents and caregivers can be a big milestone in improving and having effective
play and joint attention skills. The development of joint attention may be because the teachers
have less knowledge on this and then dont focus on this as much but the child would really
benefit in their learning process if the teachers has more knowledge and would focus on joint
attention just as much as when they are learning language development. From here, we can
now go on to their cognitive development, the child as they grow from childhood to adulthood
their IQ decreases. During early and middle childhood the IQ was generally stable. The child
with autism in those years could generally get things done and understand simple concepts. In
the study mentioned in the article, all children with autism dont grow up and their IQ increases
but only some children depending on the seriousness of their autism on the spectrum.
Sometimes it could even increase but you have to look where they are on the spectrum and
how serious the disorder really is and if it could improve. Their cognition can improve but it is
depending on their environment and how much they socialize because the more they socialize
with others the more their cognitive development will show a pretty good improvement
throughout their growth in preschool, young adult and adulthood years. Last topic but not
definitely not least, pharmacological treatments for autism spectrum disorder. Overtime it has
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become popular to use prescription medication to help with the ASD, it may not cure it but its
a start. One of the most common prescription that were given to autism patients was the
sleeping pill to help them get the sleep they need at night because of how active they are
during the day and the more energy they have each day the better the outcome of that day will
be for them. Not only will using the prescription drugs help but going to behavioral
interventions or even just helping them with everyday education. They will see the support
coming from others around them and just doing these simple tasks with the children can vastly
improve their life expectancy. The prescription medication is helpful yes, but the medication is
still in the process of figuring out just how much the medication really works for the children.
Yes it may help with their behavior or symptoms but you have to realize this may only work for
a short period of time or not at all. Its a medication that is still going through some practice
tests to improve the way it works on children with autism. Although there is research currently
on two different medications that seem to be doing quite well for ASD children, but these two
focus on their behavior, so this would be good for when in social settings the child may have
some control over their own behavior which would be nice for not only their caregivers but
themselves. Because as known from a child with ASD they do have behaviors which tend to be
uncontrollable and may get the child into a situation that can cause serious injury to themselves
or even others. These medications also have risks with them like most medications we take this
is why we have to be cautious as well. You have to look at the holistic child because one of the
medication can cause significant weight gain and even diabetes. As a parent who has a child
with autism its enough on a daily basis looking after your child and make sure they get the
attention and needs everyday but taking medication and in the end dealing with the risks of
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weight gain or diabetes with the child, its a whole other story. The medication may be good in
social settings when around other people like school but when it comes down to being at
home, let them express themselves in any way they want. They are children and when it comes
down to it, its the parent who ends up choosing in the end whether they feel the medication is
needed or not.













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References
Matson, J., & Neal, D. (2010, January 25). Differentiating communication disorders and autism in
children. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946709001457
Tomaino, M., Miltenberger, C., & Charlop, M. (2014, April 5). Social SKills and Play in Children with
Autism. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4939-0401-3_17
Wong, C., & Kasari, C. (2012, February 17). Play and Joint Attention of Children with Autism in the
Preschool Special Education Classroom. Retrieved from
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-012-1467-2
Magiati, I. (2013, January 1). Cognitive, language, social and behavioural outcomes in adults with
autism spectrum disorders: A systematic review of longitudinal follow-up studies in adulthood.
Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735813001578
Murray, M. (2014, March 1). Pharmacological treatments prescribed to people with autism spectrum
disorder (ASD) in primary health care. Retrieved from
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-013-3140-7