Autism - Signs, Symptoms, Treatments, Resources, Support for Autism

The recorded history of autism is really very short which is quite surprising when you think of how prevelant it is in today's society. The term autism was first coined by Eugen Bleuler, a Swiss psychiatrist, in 1911 to apply to adult schizophrenia. It took about 30 more years for autism to be defined as, more or less, what we refer to today. In 1943, Dr. Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins University used the term to describe his 5-year long observations of 11 children who had started to withdraw from human contact at around 1 year old. Interestingly enough, at around the same time, a scientist in Germany named Hans Asperger identified  the similar condition that we now know as Asperger's Syndrome. After Kanner and Asperger's discovery, parents were believed to treat their autistic children without the "normal" warmth and affection that parents give their children. As we continue on throught the history of autism, for more than 2 decades (through the 60's), anyone wh...

In far too many schools today, autistic children are punished or even expelled for behaving differently from other children. Inappropriate behaviors such as hitting or even harming themselves are punished and scolded and children are labeled as being ill-behaved without ever receiving the proper training and treatment necessary.  This does more than create a social stigma around autistic children; it also deprives them of the quality of education that they deserve.  ABA therapy is a proven autism treatment that is used in many schools and can help teach children the behavior skills they need to thrive when in a classroom or real world environment. ABA therapy utilizes a number of methods for teaching behavior management.  Discrete trial teaching, the most common part of ABA, uses prompts and repetition to teach these skills.  Intensive ABA therapy is proven successful in helping children with varying degrees of autism spectrum disorders to learn the ...