World Autism Day: Enter the Lonely Planet and protect the children of the stars

In December 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution to designate April 2 as "World Autism Day" from 2008 onwards, in order to raise awareness of autism, related research and diagnosis, and autistic patients. The concept of autism was first proposed by Leo Kanner, an expert at Johns Hopkins University in the United States in 1943. Autism is also called autism in medicine, and it is a disease that is not yet known and understood by the whole society. Unlike diseases such as Down syndrome, autism does not affect the patient's face, so the appearance of autistic patients is no different from that of normal people.

Social background

Autism is a lifelong developmental disorder caused by a disorder of the nervous system that affects brain function. Symptoms appear before the age of three, and most patients are children. Children with the disease have developmental impairments and lack normal language communication and social interaction skills. In order to raise awareness of autism and strive for early treatment to improve the condition of patients, April 2nd of each year is designated as World Autism Day. This resolution was proposed by Qatar and co-sponsored by 50 other countries. Children with autism are a group that is increasing in number, but is not widely concerned or understood by society, and is a group that lacks general social care.

It is reported that officials from the U.S. Department of Health said that one in every 156 American children suffers from autism. This high proportion is far beyond people's expectations. For this reason, the U.S. Department of Health called on the public to pay more attention to this disease. In China, if calculated by the child population, according to the census statistics, in 2000, the number of children in China was about 290 million, accounting for 22.89% of the total population, and children with autism accounted for about 0.6% of the total number of children. And it cannot be denied that there are still many children with autism who have not been discovered, diagnosed, let alone treated. China has always faced huge challenges in the number of autistic children and treatment and correction. Autism is a "suspected disease". The cause of its disease has not been found at the domestic and international medical level. All physiological examination results of autistic children are normal. However, it can be concluded that autism is a congenital brain development disorder and a disease of the nervous system. It will accompany you for life and cannot be cured. Developed countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan have a history of more than 40 years in diagnosing and treating autism and have accumulated many successful experiences. Practice has shown that with early, correct and persistent intervention, many autistic children are able to integrate into society and live independently.

Symptoms

1. Narrow interests and repetitive behaviors. Children with autism often focus on one or several games or activities for a long time. For example, they are obsessed with spinning on the ground, like watching TV commercials and weather forecasts, and have no interest in cartoons with storylines or children's TV series.

2. Loneliness and isolation, not establishing connections with others. Children with autism like to be alone and have no dependence on their parents. Some children have reactions since infancy, do not like to be held by others, and will cry when others hold them. Their loneliness is also manifested in their indifference to things around them. They do whatever they want without any scruples. What happens around them has nothing to do with them. It is difficult to arouse their interest and attention, and they do not make eye contact with others.

3. Prominent speech disorders. Most autistic children speak very little, and in severe cases they even have no speech. They do not respond even when others shout at them. Although some can make sounds, they are unable to complete situational communication and can only make simple repetitive sounds. Some children will speak in a low voice or pronounce unclearly, and only people who are familiar with them can understand what they mean. Some will have normal speech ability before, but their speech ability will suddenly decline at the age of 3-4 years old, and they will lose the ability to communicate in situations.

Purpose of Establishment <br /> It has been 65 years since the first case of autism was reported in the world in 1943. Humans have taken a new historic step in their understanding of autism and their own responsibilities.

"World Autism Awareness Day" reminds human society that mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual care should be achieved between autistic patients and ordinary people. As ordinary people, we should not regard autistic patients as objects of pity, but should use April 2 as an opportunity to examine and enhance our own moral concepts and social responsibilities. As autistic patients and their directly related personnel, such as autistic patients' families, scholars and experts, doctors and nurses, etc., we should also regard April 2 as a "gas station" to continue to work together to defeat the disease. People should strive to make April 2 a festival for autistic patients to have confidence and live happily.

Experts from the China Institute of Child Development and Behavior pointed out that according to authoritative data, the number of people diagnosed with autism in my country is about 1.6 million, the number of undiagnosed people should be more than 5 million, and the number of people seeking medical treatment is less than 1/10 of this number. Although there is no way to completely cure autism, through scientific intervention and reasonable treatment, autistic children can still get effective improvement. Therefore, the theme of the 7th World Autism Day is to call on the society to pay attention to autism, establish an early prevention and intervention mechanism for autistic children, and truly provide space for the equal development of autistic children.

Disease treatment

Research data shows that autism is a developmental disorder caused by congenital brain damage, which can usually be detected before the age of 3. Children with autism usually develop the disease within 30 months, but some develop the disease after the age of 3. So far, the cause of autism is still unclear, but studies have found that childhood autism is a biologically based disease that is highly related to genetic inheritance. Although we do not have an immediate and effective treatment method, there are still ways to treat autism. Active treatment can still significantly improve the patient's social function and quality of life.

There is no single specific treatment for autism, so a multi-pronged comprehensive treatment has gradually been widely recognized. Among them, training and education is the preferred method, and it is assisted by equally important drug treatment. Some parents think that their children’s problem is language lag, and they only need language training. In fact, language development is closely related to the development of other functions such as movement and cognition, and training methods should also be comprehensive. The stereotyped characteristics of autistic children make it difficult to generalize their acquired skills. They need to be trained and educated in different occasions to adapt to different requirements. For symptoms such as self-injury, aggression, excitement and restlessness, and sleep disorders, specialists need to prescribe drugs for treatment. People who have better language or speech functions in the early stage or before being diagnosed with autism, although the disease itself limits their potential to develop language, they do have this potential or foundation after all, and the use of drugs is more effective.

In addition, autistic children should also be supplemented with diet therapy. They should eat more coarse grains and green leafy vegetables on weekdays, which is beneficial to their physical and mental health. It is not suitable to eat more cereal foods such as oats and rye, casein foods, foods containing pigments, and foods high in salicylic acid.

Since the rehabilitation of autism is a long-term or even lifelong training and treatment process, and it consumes a lot of time and energy of caregivers. I remember that a parent of an autistic child once wrote: When I found that my child was different from other children, what I had to do was not to kneel down, but to lie down. Lying down was to build a bridge for him, so that my child could walk from my body to the other end... Seeing such words, we can all understand the inner difficulties of parents of autistic children. For this reason, the whole society is paying more and more attention to autistic patients, and calling on everyone to pay attention to autistic children and care for autistic patients around them. I really hope that one day society will allow each of us to lie down with a grateful attitude, and truly build these bridges for everyone and for ourselves.