Mental Health Disorder Autism

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“Autism is a complex developmental disability usually observable before age 3 that affects development in social interaction and communication… often used synonymously with ASD.” (O’Brien & Beattie, 2017, p.

239) The range and severity of symptoms varies widely depending on the individual. Those with autism lack social communication and interaction skills that include verbal and non-verbal interactions and receptive and expressive delays. Verbal and non-verbal interactions can cause a person to have difficulty initiating and/or sustaining conversations or have the inability/disinterest of interacting or relating with one’s peers, also known as reciprocal conversation.
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Delays of language are common amongst those with autism, including receptive and expressive delays. Receptive delays deal with comprehending what was said and expressive delays deals with communicating your thoughts, needs, and wants. For example, a student may be able to comprehend what was taught in class(receptive), but when asked what they’ve learned that day may have difficulty projecting what they know(expressive). (O’Brien & Beattie, 2017, p.222) People with autism often partake in restricted, repetitive behaviors and interests. Their behaviors are composed of small, motor movements like tapping your pencil, repeating sounds or phrases, etc. Interests involves a strong interest for one particular topic that tends to dictate most conversations with others. Individuals with autism typically have a high need to follow their own self-imposed schedule, even the slightest change can be troubling.
This also includes changes in environment being stressful as well. Lastly, “…they may have high or low thresholds of responses to sensory input and/or display an atypical interest in environmental sensory stimuli.
” (O’Brien & Beattie, 2017, p.223) Common risk factors comprise mostly from genetic and environmental factors. Frequently occurring within individuals who have certain genetic or chromosomal conditions, like fragile X syndrome or tuberous sclerosis. People who have siblings with autism or children born from older parents are at higher risk of having autism. (“Autism Spectrum Disorder,” 2016) Harmful exposure during early pregnancy has been linked to autism, such as taking prescriptions drugs like valproic acid, thalidomide, and misoprostol. (Landrigan, 2010)
Autism can be detected within 12-18 months of age, the best thing you can do is catch it as early as possible. It is treated based off the individual’s needs, but before one can receive treatment they have to be diagnosed. Warning signs consists of delayed use of speech, unusual speech, limited or no eye contact during speech, not responding to name or simple verbal instructions, using objects atypically, delayed or lack of joint attention, lack of gestures, lack of facial expressions, limited social smiling, avoidance of looking at faces, and unusual intense focus on objects or interests. (O’Brien & Beattie, 2017, p.223) Once diagnosed the child may begin to receive early intervention, “consisting of specialized services which specifically address the child’s needs and is offered for children with disabilities from birth to 3 years and their families.” (O’Brien & Beattie, 2017, p.240) Another way of treating autism is through evidence-based practices for school aged individuals with ASD including visual supports, reinforcements, peer-mediated instruction, technological instruction and intervention. Visual supports are any visual display that represents rules, expectations, schedules, and sequence of activities.
Reinforcements are used to encourage appropriate behaviors and skills. Peer-mediated instruction is typically used to increase social interaction between peers as well as reducing dependence upon adults. It is split between two types of peer intervention, the first being a group of peers assigned different roles to assist, tutor, and reinforce appropriate behavior. The second is organizing social networks to present more social opportunities so any individual with disabilities may create friendships. Technological instruction and intervention is a way to help students learn academic content, increase communication, socialization, and independence. This instruction is also beneficial towards students without disabilities. (O’Brien & Beattie, 2017, p.231-237) “Social Exclusion, being excluded from life of society/treated as less than equal.” Unemployment, having no job security and having negative emotions affect mental and physical health. (Ward, 2018) Individuals with autism already have difficulty socializing with others, but people are too quick to judge something that isn’t similar to themselves. On top of that employment is a large issue, not only for individuals with autism, but most individuals with and without disabilities.
Much like social exclusion they aren’t given a chance to prove that they are far more capable of completing tasks necessary to fulfill the requirements of the job. This relates to college students because many people are excluded from socializing with their peers due to a various number of reasons. Some students may feel as though they are unable to communicate with their peers properly or from fear of judgement. College is a place of learning to become whatever it is we dreamed of becoming. Once graduated though we are greeted with the harsh reality of not finding a job due to factors like “lack of experience.” Much like people with autism, college students aren’t even given the chance to get the experience and show what they are capable of doing. Due to behavioral issues associated with autism, a general stigma has been put upon those with autism having to deal with the unacceptable behavior perceived by the public because of social norms.
Another stigma created by the public is feeling sorry or bad for the child and his/her parents. Throughout the years people with disability have been perceived as those who are “unintelligent” and “retarded,” but today people have come to realize that they are not defined by their disabilities and can achieve far more than once thought in the past. Society has changed for the better and hardly participate or tolerate these stigmas, but bullying is still a very big problem within schools. Their peers are unable to understand their differences and choose to degrade those around them, whether they have a disability or not. Victims of this may feel as though nobody can understand them for who they are and feel as though there is something wrong with them, resulting in closing themselves off from the world. It can affect our culture negatively by reinforcing that it’s acceptable to ridicule someone different from themselves. Because of our society looking upon those with autism as lacking in intelligence and social responsibility, their right to autonomy is stripped away. The issues regarding autism have been solved over the years because there has been a better understanding of those with autism and what they struggle with. Spreading this information and sharing a deeper and more personal light in the life of those with autism we can slowly and socially give those with disabilities the autonomy they deserve.

Damon Roberts

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