Stim, Deafness and Other Factor to Determine Autism

My daughter likes to play and wiggle and jiggle strings and hangers and any thing she can get hold of but mostly strings or anything long, like belts, shoe laces, wires (yikes). It’s a peculiar behavior, and once you see your child do this don’t hesitate and have her diagnosed immediately because she could be (God forbid) autistic in some level.

That mannerism is what child psychologist calls a Stim or self-stimulatory behaviors and is only manifested by autistics and one of the most telling factor that a child has the disorder.

Another telling factor of the possibility that your child is inflicted with this disorder is when you think your child is deaf because he doesn’t respond when you call him or doesn’t respond at any noise at all. Most parents might think that the unresponsiveness of their kids is due to hearing defects.

These two are often confused with the other as autism may be misdiagnosed as deafness and the other way around. The specialist we went to that recommended a hearing test (BAER) for Tasha wanted to make sure about this since the instances that impairs free communication and dialog between people are autism and deafness. Sometimes though, a child can actually turn out to be both autistic and deaf. God forbid.

When I had Tasha diagnosed by three different specialists, I despised some of them because how could they tell in just a couple minutes looking at them observing their movements and asking me and my mom questions about her.

I still don’t accept and get hurt to even call my daughter an autistic, I refuse to brand her that, she is not, she is just different than the average. Every child is born different. People should know to avoid comparison and that branding a child is like surrendering to the fact that there is nothing I can do for my child. Parents don’t want their child diagnosed with a lifelong disorder that will affect everything that they do.

However, we can look at the situation in a different way because autism is not always about disabilities. It’s a known fact that autistic people have extremely extraordinary abilities and talents compared to normal people. Take Mozart for example, he is a music genius and he is an autistic. The ability to multiply 47,631,789 by 23,674 in your head, or other large numbers is a possible manifestation that you may inhibit some extraordinary skills of autistics savants according to Physicist Allan Snyder said.

Usually, parents confuse the child’s behavioral problems as something that they thought they are the ones who were at fault. This is, indeed, a wrong connotation because autism is not caused by environmental factors. In fact, no one knows what the exact causes of autism are.

Autistic children are regarded as children who live in their own world. The condition displays lack of proper communication skills and repetitive behavioral patterns. Some may think that they are stuck to being such but actually these children are capable of observing and learning too, only in their own way. There is a need for the people around the kid, the family, to understand the world of the child. Awareness is important in this area because the more people who understand the more we can help the suffering parents and the misunderstood children.

Some of the tell tale signs for infants as young as 1 year old that your child could be autistic:(from ASD network)

1. Be wary if your child is not able to manifest normal gestures such as pointing or waving by the time he turns one year old.
Normally, children should be adept in more gestures that show proper body and brain coordination such as waving bye-bye or pointing to certain objects that fascinates them by the time that they turn one. If, in any case, your child does not manifest gestures such as those mentioned, then, your child is most likely a candidate for autism.

2. No chatting or coos by 12 months of age.
This would mean that your child is having delayed communication developments, which is the primary indicator of childhood autism.

3. By the time your child reaches 16 months and still he cannot utter even a single word, then, he may be having difficulty with verbal communication, which is one of the vital signs in autism.

4. When children reach 24 months and still, they do not utter two-word phrases on their own and keep on repeating what other people are saying could mean early signs of autism.

5. Your child may be autistic if he or she had lost communication or social skills.