Patient's question:
Doctor: Hello! My son is already two years old. He loves sour foods very much. I read an article that says people who like sour foods are more prone to autism, being solitary, and not sociable. I've observed that this seems to be the case as well. He doesn't like playing with other children much, either staying on the side watching them play. I'm quite concerned. What can I do to prevent him from developing these symptoms? Is there any good way to correct this?Doctor's answer:
Hello, if children with autism receive appropriate education, they can all make significant improvements. The intervention of education can bring considerable progress to autism at any age. Through education and training, children with autism can lead a happy and functional life, enabling them to integrate into society. The earlier the training for children with autism, the better. Wisdom and patience are needed to open the "autistic" door for these children.Internationally, the following are some commonly used methods for treating autism:
Educational Therapy: The main goal is to teach them useful social skills, such as life management abilities, ways of interacting with others, and the ability to coordinate with the surrounding environment. This primarily involves a social education environment. After a child is diagnosed with "autism," even if they have a good family environment, if they are excluded from school, the prospects for healthy development remain bleak. This requires kindergartens and primary schools in the child's community to have the awareness and teaching resources to accept children with autism, allowing them to live in a supportive and joyful atmosphere.
Behavioral Therapy: The main focus is to promote the socialization and language development of children with autism, while as much as possible eliminating their pathological behaviors, such as stereotypies, self-injury, and aggression. This is generally done through special behavior correction in a highly structured environment. Due to the significant differences in the deficits of children with autism and their family environments, treatment plans should be individualized and adaptable to home or other settings. Promoting children's social development should not involve long-term hospitalization. Instead, it should be based at home, with parents trained to achieve close cooperation from family members, thereby achieving the best results from behavioral therapy.
Medication: Currently, medication cannot change the course of autism but can only control symptoms to some extent. The main medications used include antipsychotics, central nervous system stimulants, antidepressants, and vitamins. For the treatment of children with autism, early detection, early diagnosis, and early intervention should be emphasized. Due to the late recognition of autism in China, early intervention, which was widely implemented abroad, has only just begun to take off in China. Early intervention is a purposeful, systematic, and organized educational measure that can help children with autism detected before the age of 6 to recover or approach normalcy, improving their intelligence, social skills, language expression abilities, and self-care skills to varying degrees. Some children may even enter regular schools during early childhood.