Autism Spectrum

HMnK proudly present the spectrum of autism tendencies present in the children, compared with normal children of their age. These signs distinguish an autistic child from normal. These autism spectrum is explained below;

1) Does the child responds to his name when called by parents?

Within the first months of life, babies respond to their own name by orienting themselves to the person who has called them. Typically developing infants usually respond to the voice of famous people with looks and with a smile. In contrast, infants diagnosed with autism do not respond to their name. It may also happen that they show no reaction when called by the parents by name, but immediately hear when the TV is turned on. It is not uncommon to suspect parents that their child is having difficulty in hearing or is deaf.

2) Is the child attentive? As the baby reaches the age of a year it starts showing attention to their parents, toys, pets or surrounding objects. They may show more affection to mother or father or finds more interest in one toy than others, or likes to play or avoid pet cat or puppy. For example, the flying bird draws attention of the child and he points towards it. In contrast, autistic children have special difficulties in drawing attention towards their surroundings. They often do not switch their gaze from objects and rarely look on the other moving objects. They may not give attention to their parents or toys.

3) Does the child imitate others? By nature, developing young children are imitators. Even babies start mimicking facial movements. At the age of 8-10 months, toddler imitates the sounds of his mother, clap or make other movements. Imitation plays a very important role in learning, some games like "How big?" ("How big is that?" Soooo big! "While the child's  stretches his hands high, imitating his mother). Autistic children imitate others less often. They demonstrate less imitations of the body or face (waving, making faces, toddler games) and also imitate less with objects. 

4)  Does the child respond emotionally to others? Typically developing children respond socially to others. They smile when you smile, or while playing with toys or pets. Similarly they get worried, make cry face and eventually cry when they watch other children crying. Slightly older infants crawl to the crying baby or pet or try to offer in other ways consolation. In contrast, children with autism do not perceive the feelings of others. Maybe you can tell that they do not see social smiles of others thus do not smile back, in the same way, they may ignore the sadness of others.

5) Does the child play fantasy games: Someone once said: "Play is the work of Children" Children love to pretend as if they were a mother, a father, a firefighter or a police officer etc. In contrast, you may find an autistic showing no interests in these role plays. The toddler is probably not interested in objects, but the interest is more on the movement of one's own hand or a piece of string.