The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Number of autistic children on the rise

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Tamil Nadu

Number of autistic children on the rise

Staff Reporter

116 persons in every 10,000 population are autistic

Autism is not a mental illness but a condition caused by neurological development disorder
Autistic people will tend to avoid eye contact with other persons while talking

Tirupur: If a child wants to watch an advertisement jingle repeatedly all a parent should do is to pause for a minute before applauding the child’s musical sense.

“It can be due to autism also,” tells Shripathi Upadhayaya, clinical psychologist, Bradford District Care Trust, United Kingdom.

Workshop

Addressing a group of parents, special education teachers, speech therapists and students at a workshop on autism organised by Sanjeevani Health Care Trust, here on Saturday, Dr. Upadhayaya said that the number of autistic children across the world has been on a rise.

“Prevalence of autism in the society is 116 in every 10,000 population (including children and adults),” he said.

According to him, it is only a tip of an iceberg as lots of cases are remaining undetected.

Diagnose early

Autism, he says, will affect the general personality of a person and hence it should be diagnosed when a person is in his/her childhood to provide them with an improved life to a considerable extent.

Tips

Dr. Upadhayaya asked the participants to start watching the movements and behavioural pattern of the child as early as one-and- a- half to two years of age to detect autism.

“Autistic people will tend to avoid eye contact with other persons while talking and they will not be socially interactive," he said.

Slow learner

He reminded that an autistic child would not show interest in other children and would be a slow learner in many things. However, he reiterated that autism was not a mental illness but a condition caused by neurological development disorder.

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