Autism: A Complex Developmental Disorder with Many Subtypes - Essay Sample

Introduction

Autism, also known as the autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disorder that undermines the ability to communicate and interact. It affects a person's nervous system and is usually characterized by challenges with repetitive behaviors, social skills, speech, and nonverbal communication (Zeldovich, 2018). According to various studies, autism is not one but has many subtypes; most are brought about by an assortment of genetic and environmental factors. People with autism vary from the highly skilled one to those that are harshly affected by it. Due to this, it makes these people behave differently, think, and solve problems differently depending on how they are affected. It can also be seen in cases where some people living with autism living independently, while others require support from people in their daily lives.

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The origin of the disease/disorder

Autism was first described in 1943 by a psychiatrist known as Leo Kanner, who wrote about children who had "extreme autistic loneliness" and other books (Zeldovich, 2018). Kanner noted that children with autism were intelligent. Some of them had extraordinary memory compared to other children, which made him view the disease as an emotional disturbance that does not affect cognition. Autism was then recognized as a disorder in 2000. The spectrum added other conditions like childhood disintegrative disorder, which is defined by drastic developmental reversals and regression, Asperger’s disease, and the Rett syndrome that affects movement and communication mostly in girls.

Drugs used to treat the disease/disorder

At an early age, autism is described as a form of childhood schizophrenia (Zeldovich, 2018). It is believed that children with autism come from unemotional mothers, and Bruno Bettelheim, therefore, dubbed them as refrigerator mothers. The treatment of autism may include therapies and medication. People with autism or autistic behavior are always encouraged to undergo therapy to help them cope with the disease. Through this therapy, they will also get medication, which their therapists usually recommend after an intimate understanding of their behaviors or characteristics, making it easier to decide what type of medication is best suitable for an individual. Family therapy is also advised because of its nature to reduce symptoms and support development and learning.

Besides, anger management is another type of treatment used to help people with autism. This is done by practising different coping mechanisms that will prevent the trigger of emotional outbursts. People are usually advised to react to anger as unwanted and unpleasant and not responding to it (Chandrashekhar, Bommangoudar, 2018). Easy ways to control anger are getting enough sleep, exercise, and having a good diet. Therapists also use applied behavior analysis, where they mostly focus on behaviorist theories, enabling reach goals and enabling therapists to measure results carefully. Behavioral therapy is also considered in most cases as it helps in modifying individual harmful attitudes related to psychological distress.

Other types of treatment use sensory processing; animal-assisted therapy usually involves therapists using animals to help with their wellbeing, be it emotionally, physically, or even socially and tele-practice, which consists of the use of communication technologies by therapists or parents to communicate with people living with autism. Sensory integration therapy is also essential because it helps therapists deal with children affected by specific sounds, bright light, and even touch, which might make them angry or upset. This therapy helps them understand how to deal with different sensory information.

Different medicines are prescribed by therapists to help people living with autism, depending on their individual needs. The medication provided for autism is not for its treatment but to help with the related symptoms associated with autism. For example, those that are depressed have insomnia, seizures, or might have trouble focusing. Antipsychotics such as risperidone are usually prescribed. Risperidone is the only drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, and is generally prescribed for children between 5-16 years. Doctors might prescribe other medicines depending on the case, but the FDA disapproves of them.

Potential side effects of the drugs

Drugs used for autism usually have side effects; for example, risperidone has a 20% chance of an increase in obesity compared to drugs used for hyperactivity, which have minimal impact on a person's body weight (Griswold, 2016). This might be caused by children with autism being likely to develop obesity compared to those without it. In other cases, drugs such as diuretics can lead to hurdles such as high blood pressure. This will be a problem for children with autism because they will now be forced to live under different medications for their wellbeing. This will, in turn, affect parents because they will be seeing their children suffer, which is not easy for many parents.

In most cases, autistic children tend to have decayed, missing, and filled teeth, mostly caused by different medications. These children also have poor tongue coordination, which makes them prefer soft and sweet food, which will be easy to swallow, but instead, they pouch the food inside their mouths. Brushing off their teeth also becomes a problem because of their high sensitivity, making their teeth decay because they are not well brushed, and some food is usually left in the mouth.

References

Chandrashekhar S, Bommangoudar JS. Management of autistic patients in the dental office: a clinical update. International journal of clinical pediatric dentistry. 2018.

Griswold A. Side effects of meds weigh heavily on children with autism. 2016 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.spectrumnews.org/news/side-effects-of-meds-weigh-heavily-on-children-with-autism/amp

Zeldovich L. The evolution of “autism” as a diagnosis, explained. 2018. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/evolution-autism-diagnosis-explained/