There have been stories and tales of a cure or magical treatment for autism. These claims are not true. They set up the hopes and dreams of both parents and teachers alike only to be disenchanted with the discovery that the claim is false. There has only been one proven treatment for autism and the treatment is not a cure.
This treatment is an educational programme that individually fits the autistic child’s abilities and works around the disabilities to teach the child alternative forms of communication and behavioural skills which will allow them some semblance of a normal adulthood.
When an autistic child reaches school age, there will be a meeting of professionals including a psychologist, doctors, parents, speech therapists, and other interested parties who will draw up an individualised education programme for the child. This program will look at the abilities of the child and what level of achievement the child has had in the parent’s home and outside services.
Mainstreaming the child into regular classrooms is the overall goal of the programme, but the child will be pulled out of mainstream classes in order to provide special services which may include a speech instructor or an behaviour specialist who works on both the communication process and the behaviour associated with autism.
There are advocates that believe autistic children should be brought out of the ‘normal’ mainstream classes and put into a more restrictive environment that will limit the sensory stimuli that might distract or upset the child. The autistic child needs to have a pattern in their lives and in the mainstream classroom; the hustle and bustle of public education situations may lead them to sensory overload. Not only that, but the social aspect of being ‘different',and not being able to contribute or communicate to the rest of the class can be heartbreaking to both the student and the teachers involved.
The self contained class room will break down tasks into manageable chunks that the child can be successful at and maybe eventually learn. The treatment process goes on both at home and at school. The autistic child must be taught how to appropriately interact with others. A common behaviour in autistic children is to take their clothes off in public situations, as they see no sense of wrong or right by being nude in public.
Such behaviours need time and patience to mend and some methods might work for one child and then be a complete failure for others. Parents, teachers, and medical professionals need to keep abreast of new treatments so that they can replace a treatment or method that has been proven to be a failure for a particular child. Sometimes the behaviour cannot be changed at all and the individualised education programme must come up with strategies to deal with the particular behaviour in question.
Parents and teachers must remember that the autism is a life long condition and ,as the child moves through life, the treatments must change to fit the life period of that child. For example, when puberty comes along the autistic child will discover themselves sexually and masturbation usually follows. The programme must change to fit the new behaviour of masturbation and in a few years it must change again to teach the child the appropriate behaviours with the opposite sex.
The changes are not understood by the child, but like Pavlov’s dog, a conditioned response can be instilled in the child and the proper behaviour therefore occurs as a learned response.
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