Autism Therapy - A Life's Work

[Christian Hanks]

Regrettably autism is a disorder that has no cure yet. There is very
little known about why it impacts some people. The diagnosis itself is
hard because at first the disorder is assumed as "bad-behavior" and
other corrective steps are used. It has been found that if autism
therapy is started early, there is promise for amelioration in some
children.
Autism - A Very Agonizing Plight for Parents
It is exceedingly painful for parents to learn that their child is
stricken by autism. This is even more so since there is no cure yet
for this affliction. There is no way that one can be assured that the
future will bring some hope. Autism therapy involves a series of
exercises to bring the child out of his or her world, but as many
frustrated parents have learned, it appears that the child has a door
which they shut out against the world and nothing that one can do or
say reaches them anymore.
Since autistic children close themselves off from their surroundings,
it is very challenging to teach them at times because they stop
observing - which is a critical tool for learning. Autism therapy
tries to work around this obstacle through different approaches
founded on applied behavioral analysis. Even so, progress in most
cases is extremely slow; since the children do not respond to their
outside surroundings, the positive reinforcement method - which
generally is a very powerful tool - doesn't apply in this case.
There Are Modest Rays of Hope
There have been cases, largely when autism therapy began before the
children were two to three years old. The children made an almost full
transition. Such cases act as inspiration and promise for those
parents who are struggling to deal with this blow. The educational
facilities accessible for autistic children are very limited and very
expensive.
Parents of these children are left at the mercy of their fate - most
of whom opt for home schooling rather than fight the million and one
challenges that fall onto their path when they enquire for state
education facilities. Unfortunately, even the treatment of these
children is extremely hard and expensive. There is an acute shortage
of specialists for autism therapy, which stacks the odds against these
children.
However, a spark of hope is there. In a number of cases, largely those
where the autism therapy was started very early, there has been a
total turnaround where the child became almost normal. Though the
reasons are still not clear, the phenomenon holds a promise for a
potential cure sometime in the future.