Today, in various countries of the world, they are increasingly talking about a real “epidemic” of autism. Let’s take a closer look at people with this syndrome: how do they feel? How do they perceive everything that surrounds them? Travel to another dimension.
These are strange children. Their eyes elude us, and we ask ourselves if they see us at all. Their behavior is surprising, if not frightening: they can randomly wave their arms for a long time, spin in one place, or ask the same question many times in a monotonous voice … Autism – the name of the disorder they suffer from – often turns into an insulting mockery, tearing the heart of the parents.
Over the past two decades, the number of people diagnosed with autism has been growing rapidly around the world. “For example, in the US, this diagnosis is made to one in 88 children,” says psychiatrist Brian King, director of the Seattle Center for Children with Autism (USA). “And in South Korea, even one in 38.” There are no exact figures for Russia, but, according to experts, in any class and in any group of kindergarten there is a child with one of the mild forms of autism.
A few months after birth, these children already seem unusual (although the diagnosis is made at a year and a half). Manifestations are extremely diverse, not without reason experts say: “If you know one person with autism, this does not mean that you know about autism.”
Some children will master speech, others will not. Some will lag behind in mental development (about 45% of them), others will show a brilliant intellect or a phenomenal memory. Someone will make discoveries or write books, and someone will never be able to learn to read. But no matter how different they are, people with autism are able to open up if we make an effort to teach them how to communicate with us.
They do not distinguish a person’s voice from other sounds.
The originality of an autist is primarily in the fact that he hears, sees, and feels reality in a different way.
“Due to genetic disorders, the brains of these children are overactive,” says Monika Zilbovicius, a psychologist at the French Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm). – He simply does not have time to combine, analyze everything that the child sees, hears, touches. The world is perceived fragmentary and distorted.
Perceptual impairment can cause a child to confuse a raised finger with a pencil, for example. For him, the human voice is no different from other sounds: he does not respond to his name (it seems to his parents that he does not hear), but he flinches when a car passes along the street. Such sensory confusion also occurs in relation to touch: “Masha is now 4 years old, she cannot stand the touch of soft materials like velvet, as if they burn her,” her mother says. “But she likes to touch and stroke the spiky washcloth.”
We all communicate with other people through the senses, they help to navigate the world and understand others. Data from the organs of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, entering the brain of a child with autism, are superimposed on each other, like bricks that are not cemented together. And as soon as something unexpected happens, for example, a loud phone rings or a strong desire to go to the toilet arises, the unstable pile of “sensory bricks” crumbles. There is panic.
Nine-year-old Maxim, for example, cannot stand applause. This sound causes an acute anxiety in the boy, because of which he can completely lose control of himself. Anomaly of sensory perception is the cause of inexplicable crying in children with autism at an early age. Hence their desire to find a sensation that will calm the inner storm: to look at a spinning toy, to bite oneself, to sway.
Some stereotyped movements are typical of autism: for example, the rapid flapping of the arms, which parents describe as the movements of a frightened bird or butterfly beating its wings. All these repetitive movements soothe such children, restoring their self-confidence and a sense of security.
Changes are possible
“Autism is “developing differently”: such children think and learn in their own way, they perceive information differently,” says Joe Stevens, director of the EarlyBird autism program (UK). “We don’t have a magic ball to see what the child will be like in the future. But everyone can achieve positive changes. Parents are their child’s best teachers, but they need the support of professionals. There is only one reason for failure – if the child has not been selected the right assistance program for him. We need not to calm down, but to continue to look for tools that will allow him to communicate with the world.”
They don’t pick up other people’s emotions
We can communicate with other people because we are able to understand their feelings. From the very first months of life, the baby learns to distinguish the expression on the mother’s face and to capture her emotional state. Gradually, he begins to establish connections between his feelings and what is happening in the outside world.
For example, when falling, children always look at the reaction of their parents. If the mother is frightened and frowns, the child understands that something bad has happened, but if she helps him up with a smile, then this event no longer looks dramatic for him. Over time, the child begins to recognize and name his various states with words. The perception of oneself is formed on the basis of the reactions of other people, and above all – the mother.
But a child with autism is deprived of this opportunity. “His brain receives only a partial image of those who address him,” explains Monika Zilbovicius. For example, he only sees the mouth and cheeks, but not the eyes. As a result, he simply does not have a chance to learn to distinguish facial expressions of joy, anger, sadness and many other emotions that are an important part of our non-verbal communication.
Most children, by about the age of three, are able to attribute a certain mood to another. The child gradually catches that the thoughts, ideas, desires of others are different from his own, so gradually children begin to communicate and interact with others. Having learned to understand their behavior and desires, they find real pleasure in this interaction.
Their thinking is concrete
To reiterate, a child diagnosed with autism has difficulty understanding emotions. Even when he has a high level of intelligence and uses speech correctly, others still confuse him, sometimes frighten him, and all too often remain incomprehensible.
14-year-old Ella is doing well with the school program. But it is extremely difficult for her to perceive the jokes of her classmates. “When we talk, we use metaphors, abstract images, we rely on intonation,” explains Christine Hull, clinical psychologist at the Autism Center in Atlanta (USA). “All this escapes the child with autism. For him, a word is just a word. Because the autistic mindset is concrete mindset.”
Ella sees that those around her are laughing at her words, but is unable to understand what made them laugh. “Children like Ella are not capable of metaphors, they are not able to understand them spontaneously,” the psychologist adds. – When a child hears that his mother “swallows books”, he sees her literally swallowing sheets of paper. It is difficult for him to understand the implicitly expressed, and especially that which makes it so difficult to study at school – abstraction.
What is the cause of autism?
Autism is a congenital disorder of mental development. They can’t get sick, and they can’t be cured. “For a long time, experts assumed that autism could be the result of psychological trauma received in early childhood, when parents were cold and cruel in their treatment of the child,” says Brian King. – According to another version, vaccines for childhood vaccinations could provoke it. However, neither hypothesis was confirmed.”
The cause of autism in genetic failures, emphasizes the psychiatrist. According to other data, in people with autism, there is a redundancy of neural connections between parts of the brain. As a result, their brains are overloaded and unable to cope with the flow of information. In addition, premature babies weighing less than 2 kg are 5 times more likely to develop autism spectrum disorders than other newborns.
They find it difficult to learn the rules of conduct
A person with autism who does not “read” the experiences of others also finds it difficult to get others to understand their own feelings. His voice sounds monotonous, without modulations, he can say “thank you very much” in an angry tone that he himself does not feel, involuntarily he can make tactless remarks.
So, Ella, in front of other classmates, told the math teacher that she had a “hefty nose.” She didn’t mean to offend her at all. But the inability to perceive other people’s emotions often causes irritation or even anger.
“For them, living in society is like wandering through a dense forest,” emphasizes Christine Hull. Even people with “high-functioning” autism—those who graduate, work, and live with non-autistics—admit that they constantly feel insecure. “I had to learn by heart how to behave in every situation,” says one of the famous autistic Temple Grandin (Temple Grandin) in the book Opening the Doors of Hope.
They spend a lot of energy to live among us.
One can cite as an example the young Muscovite Svetlana, who has matured, is already working as an engineer, but at her 26 years old has not yet learned to look into the eyes of her interlocutors: “Although no one notices this, because I have trained to look at the point between the eyebrows when I speak with man.” Always on the lookout, from a very early age they spend all their energy living among us, adapting to sounds and sights and finally understanding what we say.
“Yes, they show a deficit in empathy, but this should not be taken to mean that they are not capable of experiencing emotions,” warns Christine Hull. – They need love, affection, warm relations just like we do. If not more! And he concludes with a smile: “And we must meet them halfway, give each of them the keys that he needs. Don’t behave like people with autism towards them.”
“We are different, but not worse”
Steve Summers, an adult with Asperger’s Syndrome, wrote a poignant confession, which is published on Autismum.
“I’m autistic and I’m tired. Tired of being rejected. Tired of being ignored. Tired of being expelled. Tired of being treated like an outcast. Tired of people who don’t understand what autism is. From people who refuse to accept autistic people for who they are. Tired of other people’s expectations that I will try and behave “normally”. I’m not “normal”. I am autistic. Do you want to help us? Listen to autistic people. Put more effort into learning about autism. Accept that we are different, but not worse. Don’t try to turn us into a bad copy of your “normal” idea. Accept that it’s okay for us to be ourselves. Accept that we are people with the same feelings as everyone else. Please be kind and support us. Please be proactive in communicating with us. We can rarely take a step forward after a lifetime of rejection, exclusion and bullying… I am autistic and I want to be appreciated and accepted for who I am.”
The material was prepared with the support of the Naked Heart Foundation, the organizer of the II International Forum “Every Child Deserves a Family”