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Chance Thrasher

Professor Burch

English 102

November 15, 2015

Autism

Who knows what autism truly is? Not many people know what it is and what challenges

they have to face when carrying out therapy and treatment. There are many conjectures and

researched base practices pertaining to what causes autism and if there is a cure but there is no

factual based evidence for any of it. I have four sources that discuss possible causes of Autism

Spectrum Disorder, ways to treat it, methods of therapy, and ways of coping and living with

someone you love that has autism. My goal in this paper is to connect the four sources that I

found and the information they share with my personal experience growing up and living with

my brother that has severe autism to help other people learn more about autism without

diagnosing it wrong.

Autism falls into the Autism Spectrum Disorder that covers multiple disorders such as

Angelman Syndrome and Aspergers. Eileen Raymond who wrote Learners with Mild

Disabilities a Characteristics Approach gives the definition autism A developmental disability

significantly affecting verbal and non-verbal communication and social interaction, usually

evident before age 3, that adversely affects a childs educational performance (175). This

definition matches up with my brother Blade perfectly, he is non-verbal and has a difficult time

communicating. Though he meets the general definition he does not adhere to the stereotypical

characteristics that the book gives, which Raymond says are almost always present such as:

engagement in repetitive activities or resistance to environmental change or change in daily

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routines (175). Blade basically does whatever comes to mind, he has things that he likes to do

but there is no rhyme or reason to his activity. The only time he ever shows resistance to any

environmental change is when you stop him from going to sleep at night or wake him up

preemptively. While there are some traditional characteristics to look for when it comes to

autism, there are a few stereotypical characteristics that it lists that do not apply to my brother.

Each individual with autism is unique and they do not always adhere to stereotypical

characteristics like my brother. Because they are all unique, people with autism need unique

assistance as well. Autism greatly affects a childs academic ability and this means the child

requires extra assistance and specialized instruction. Katerina Vitaskova, a faculty member of

education from Palacky University in the Czech Republic, states: Another prerequisite of

quality education of a disabled individual is the structure of the individual education plan

respecting his/her personality specifics, interests and abilities (312). Students without autism are

all different and learn in different ways, and the same goes for individuals with autism. People

with autism need a lot of direct and explicit instruction such as: one-on-one teaching, a lot of

social interactions, and incentives for the student. When my family and I lived in California and

my brother was younger he was taken to multiple specialists and my mother said he always did

very well in instructional sessions with the specialists. Blade specifically learned more efficiently

when technology was involved when movies were used to teach a concept. Although his

attention span was short and he would run away from time to time if a specialist implemented a

movie or cartoon show into the session Blade was glued. Im sure there are many other people

with autism that learn in a similar way, but Im also sure that there are many individuals with

autism that learn much different than Blade and prefer different instructional methods. The issue

is that there are many areas that only offer one specialist and many times those specialists arent
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fully qualified to teach children with autism and it makes it difficult to give the child adequate

instruction or therapy.

Building on the issue with therapy or intervention associated with individuals with autism

is that people that have loved ones with autism are not aware of the multitude of therapy or

intervention practices available to them or that they live in an area where specialists arent

readily available to them. This is a problem, as Heather Kuhaneck, an associate professor in the

department of occupational therapy from Sacred Heart University, states that 1 in every 68

children will be diagnosed with ASD (1). This number has been steadily increasing every year

and it has brought the issue to the forefront and yet there are many areas in the country that do

not offer quality services for individuals with autism. Kuhaneck goes on to say that In recent

years, the U.S. government has responded to this potential public health crisis with a significant

increase in grant funding for ASD research; however, most of the resultant studies have focused

on basic science in the hopes of finding a cure (Kuhaneck and Watling 1). Although I think

there should be ample funding put into research for finding a cure I believe an equal amount

should be put into providing adequate services for those who have autism. I know from my

personal experience when my family lived in California there was a plethora of specialists

available for Blade but when we moved to the east coast, specifically Northern Georgia and

Myrtle Beach, the number of specialists dwindled considerably. My parents took him to a

physical therapist and a language and speech specialist regularly until he turned 12 which is

when we moved and now he doesnt go to any specialists because the closest one suited to assist

Blade is in Florence. The purpose of Kuhanecks article is to highlight the fact there needs to be

an increase in awareness of occupational therapy and an increase of specialists in areas of the

country that are not as progressive as other areas. Relating to my experience with my brother I
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agree with everything Kuhaneck states in her article and can back it up with firsthand experience

of the variation of availability of specialists in California compared to the east coast.

As I stated earlier I believe there should be an equal amount of money that is spent on the

advancement of therapy and specialists services compared to the amount of money that is put

into finding a cure for ASD. Yet to find a cure for something you have to know the cause of

disorder and that is a topic that is in constant debate among researchers and professionals and has

yet to be discovered. Rodney Samaco, an assistant professor from the University of California,

and his research team of etiology have been attempting to discover the cause of autism and

believes it may be a genetic disorder considering they know the causes of other disorders such

Retts Syndrome and Aspergers. He states: Although the heritability of autism in families is

high, multiple gene loci and environmental influences are expected (Samaco 4). This means that

many times there are families that have autism transcend multiple generations but many times

there is only one person in a family that has autism and something external has to be causing it.

Autism doesnt run in my family and Blade is the only member of my family that has autism, my

mother also didnt smoke or do anything to jeopardize her pregnancy. Something beyond my

parents control must have caused my brother to be born with autism and this is a major hurdle

for people attempting to find a cure for the disorder. Autism research and information about the

disorder have come a long way within the last two decades and continue to improve but there

still hasnt been a groundbreaking discovery relating to the cause and cure of the disorder.

According to Samaco and his team the key to finding the cure for autism is to find the specific

gene that is damaged or altered that causes autism-like behaviors, and perhaps with the increased

funding in recent years researchers like Samaco can find the cause and ultimately the cure for

autism.
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After comparing the information given from the scholarly articles I found, and my own

personal experience with my brother I can see many similarities between what the experts say

about autism and what I have observed from my brother. On the other hand, there are a few

characteristics that the experts describe that my brother doesnt adhere to and that supports the

fact that there is still a lot ambiguity with autism and its details. Yet autism research and methods

of therapy and instruction have come a long way in a very short amount of time, and hopefully

research will continue to advance so more people become advocates autism awareness.
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Work Cited

GUEST EDITORIAL. Occupational Therapy: Meeting The Needs Of Families Of People With

Autism Spectrum Disorder." American Journal Of Occupational Therapy 69.5 (2015): p1-

p5 5p. CINAHL Complete. Web. 28 Nov. 2015.

Raymond, Eileen B., Learners with Mild Disabilities: A Characteristics Approach. 4th Edition

Boston: Pearson, 2012. Print.

Samaco, Rodney C., Amber Hogart, and Janine M. LaSalle. "Epigenetic overlap in autism-

spectrum neurodevelopmental disorders: MECP2 deficiency causes reduced expression

of UBE3A and GABRB3." Human molecular genetics 14.4 (2005): 483-492.

Vitskov, Kateina, and Alena hov. "Trans-Disciplinary Cooperation In Children With

Autism Spectrum Disorder Intervention With Emphasis On The Speech And Language

Therapist's Important Role." Procedia - Social And Behavioral Sciences 132.6th

International Conference on Intercultural Education "Education and Health: From a

transcultural perspective" (2014): 310-317. ScienceDirect. Web. 24 Nov. 2015.