Characteristics of Autistic Children

Autistic children display many types of unusual behavior. The following are some of the most common characteristics of Autistic children.

• no speech
• minimal verbalization
• difficult to express needs
  
• delayed in speech development
• inappropriate laughing or giggling
  
• echolalia
• lack of interaction with peers
• low eye contact
• do not respond to people
• flapping hands
• flicking or spinning objects
• running/walking in circles
• spinning
• walking on tiptoes
• couldn't tolerate loud sounds
• dislike being touched
• extreme behavior
• dislike food
• aggressive behavior to others
• lack of toy play skills
• only play with one toy
  
• extreme rigidity
• dislike changing the position of objects
• enjoy arranging objects in a row
• repetitive behavior
• self-injury behavior
• insensitive to pain
• no fear for danger
  

I found this very useful chart from http://www.elainechen.com that briefly explain the characteristics of autistic children. It summarizes the characteristics of autistic kids that is easy to identify.

Denzel Did All The Action For "If You're Happy"

Christmas certainly bring a lot of magical moment to my life and especially to the kids I'm working with. 3 days ago, I was having session with this very cute kid name Denzel. He is not verbal but he is very good at gestures. He points a lot to tell us what he wants. He also clap his hands and wave good bye.

About 2 weeks ago, we started to introduce the song "If You're Happy" to him. At first he was kind of blur because he doesn't know what we are doing. Most of the time, we help him to do all the actions. Every time we sing the song to him, we will do only one action. We will either do clap hand, pat head, stomp feet or shout hooray.

3 days ago, I notice he was in a good mood and very attentive that morning. So i sang the song to him...

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands (He clapped)
If you're happy and you know it clap your hands (He clapped again)
If you're happy and you know it then you really have to show it if you're happy and you know it clap your hands (He clapped with a big smile)

I continue...

If you're happy and you know it pat your head (He patted his head!)
If you're happy and you know it pat your head (He patted his head again!)
If you're happy and you know it then you really have to show it if you're happy and you know it pat your head (He patted his head and giggled!)

I was too happy to stop singing...so i went on...

If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet (He stomped his feet while sitting down on the floor)
If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet (He stomped again!)
If you're happy and you know it then you really have to show it if you're happy and you know it stomp your feet (He stood up and stomp his feet!)

I went on with the ultimate action of shouting hooray!

If you're happy and you know it shout hooray! (I waited a while and he raised both his hands but he din say hooray though)
If you're happy and you know it shout hooray! (He raised his hands again but this time he was standing up facing me)
If you're happy and you know it then you really have to show it, if you're happy and you know it shout hooray! (He raised his arms, I can see his mouth in a "O" shape and I heard a "Hoooo")

I was so happy. I'm so proud of him! I gave him a big hug! Even though he didn't manage to say Hooray! but I can see him trying to say it. The effort he put in to say Hooray! is priceless! I'm sure someday he is going to rock the world! He started it by rocking my world first! It totally made my day!

Restricted and Repetitive Behavior

Autistic children exhibits a variety forms on restricted and repetitive behaviour.

The most common repetitive movement is hand flapping, making sounds, head rolling, body rocking, squinting their eyes, always looking at the corner of their eyes and many more.

Autistic children also loves to arrange in stacks or in a row. They are also very rigid that they dislike changing of positions e.g. furniture and changes in their daily routine. If they are expecting something, they expect that something to happen. If it doesn't happen, they will get very upset.

Restricted behavior includes lack of focus and interest. They preoccupy themselves with the same toy and the same cartoon.

Some autistic children do display self injury such as head banging, hand biting, scratching, and slapping themselves.

Social Skill

Autistic children display lacking in social skill development during early childhood.

Autistic infants show less attention to social encouragement, look at others less often and respond less to their own name.

Autistic toddlers differ more drastically from social norms. They have minimal eye contact and turn taking and are more likely to communicate by using a other people's hand.

Three to five-year-old autistic children are less likely to approach others spontaneously, imitate and respond to emotions, communicate non-verbally, and take turns with their peers.

Autistic kids do not have much play skills. That's the reason they can be very rigid and only stick to play with one toy. They will find it very hard to blend in and play with normal kids because they simply didn't know how to play with the other toys that the kids might be playing with. Therefore, we must expose more toys to autistic children since young age and teach them to play the proper way. In that way, it could build their confident and whenever they see other kids play with the toy, they will know how to play along with them.

As adults, it is not an easy job to bond with autistic kids. We need a lot of time, effort and perseverance. However, when you manage to bond with them, they can be very close to you!

Language and Communication Disorder

Most autistic children have language development issues.

According to the book, Autistic Children: A Guide for Parents and Professionals by Lorna Wing, autistic children tend to repeat phrases they hear from other people, with the correct pronunciation, accent and tone that was used by the original speaker. When he tries to say things which he has thought out for himself, his pronunciation may be very poor indeed.

Autistic children have trouble with the same sound that bothers young normal children, such as “s”, “th”, “sh”. Autistic children often miss off the end of words or used fragment of words example, “li” for “lid” and “bicle” for “bicycle”.

Autistic children may scramble the order of letters inside words, for example, “accit” for “attic”, “diccifult” for “difficult” and “pasgheti” for “spaghetti”. The order of words in sentences maybe reversed, such as “put bed on blanket” and “have strawberry shake milk”.

Some of the children I'm working with are non verbal but most of the time I can actually see them trying very hard to talk. When they couldn't express themselves, they will get very frustrated and start throwing tantrum. Therefore, we will need to be very patient to engage and discover what the kid is trying to tell us.

For those who are verbal, they talked non stop. They can actually repetitive say something they learn from the TV show over and over again. Recently, a mother of a 6 yr old autistic kid told me that her son can actually repeat the whole paragraph of the story that she just read to him! I can only say that autistic kids have power memory. But she also told me that it can be quite irritating if he keep saying it even up to the moment she tucked him into bed.

Don't be afraid if you see an autistic child talking to mid air. It is perfectly normal. I see it all the time. It is just one of their characteristics! =)

What is Autism?

As this is a blog about my autism journey, it is only complete to have a post that explain briefly regarding what is autism.

Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by delayed or pervasive development in 3 particular areas before the age of 3. According to the American Psychiatric Association, autism is classified as a Pervasive Development Disorder (APA, 1994).

The 3 delayed areas includes
a) Language or Communication Development
b) Social Skill
c) Restricted and Repetitive Behavior

Most children with autism may also be mentally retarded but their severity of mental retardation is quite variable. Besides the 3 areas mention above, some autistic children are quite different from each other. They can be very affectionate, they are very good at pretend play, some speak fairly well, some are very curious, some do very little self stimulating actions and some have extreme behavior problems. Anyhow, they are still lovely kids and deserve all the love they can have. =)

Joseph sang Jingle Bell!

Nothing can be more exciting than to share with you guys a moment of Christmas miracle that I witness yesterday on Christmas eve. Joseph is not a very verbal boy. He speaks a lot but most of the time he speaks in a language that none of us therapist can understand. But something miraculous happen yesterday.

HE SANG JINGLE BELL!!!

During our daily song session in this festive month, we had been singing a lot of Christmas song especially the infamous Jingle Bell. While my colleague is giving out the bells to the other kids so that they can play the bell and sing Jingle Bell, suddenly Joseph start singing...

"Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Jingle All The Way... ohhwaohhananahitistonahonehossay... HEY! Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Jingle All The Way..."

The "Jingle Bell Jingle Bell Jingle All The Way" is so clear. We can hear each word coming out from his tiny mouth. We were all shock and totally impressed. We all kept quiet and he just kept singing alone. After a while, he got shy and stopped. It was the talk of the day.

I believe this is all hard work from the therapists. We all kept singing to him and he kept listening to it. That is how the song for registered into him. But the most wonderful part was, he just suddenly start singing solo in front of everyone. Oh gosh... you should see the shocked face in each of the therapist. Even now when I'm typing this out, I can still remember his sweet voice echoing in my head. It really put a smile on my face and make this Christmas very special for all the therapists.

Well, maybe Santa did a little bit of magic over here as well. Christmas is indeed MAGICAL! =D