Friday, September 20, 2013

Autism Spectrum Disorder Awareness Ribbon Angel

Puzzle Piece Awareness Ribbon Angel Art Painting Image
Autism Awareness Ribbon Angel Art
Autism is a group of developmental brain disorders, collectively called autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The term "spectrum" refers to the wide range of symptoms, skills, and levels of impairment, or disability, that children with ASD can have. Some children are mildly impaired by their symptoms, but others are severely disabled.
ASD is broken out into one of five disorders, sometimes called pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs), as ASD:
  • Autistic disorder (classic autism)
  • Asperger's disorder (Asperger syndrome)
  • Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)
  • Rett's disorder (Rett syndrome)
  •  Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD).


Symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) vary from one child to the next, but in general, they fall into three areas: 
  • Social impairment 
  • Communication difficulties
  • Repetitive and stereotyped behaviors.


1 in 88 Children are Diagnosed with Autism Awareness Ribbon Puzzle Piece Angel Art Painting
Autism Awareness Ribbon Angel ~ 1 in 88 diagnosed with ASD
Children with ASD do not follow typical patterns when developing social and communication skills. Parents are usually the first to notice unusual behaviors in their child. Often, certain behaviors become more noticeable when comparing children of the same age.
Most children with ASD have trouble engaging in everyday social interactions, some children with ASD may: 
  •  Make little eye contact 
  • Tend to look and listen less to people in their environment or fail to respond to other people
  • Do not readily seek to share their enjoyment of toys or activities by pointing or showing things to others
  • Respond unusually when others show anger, distress, or affection.


Recent research suggests that children with ASD do not respond to emotional cues in human social interactions because they may not pay attention to the social cues that others typically notice
Scientists don't know the exact causes of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but research suggests that both genes and environment play important roles.  In identical twins who share the exact same genetic code, if one has ASD, the other twin also has ASD in nearly 9 out of 10 cases. If one sibling has ASD, the other siblings have 35 times the normal risk of also developing the disorder. Researchers are starting to identify particular genes that may increase the risk for ASD.
Twitter Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Awareness Puzzle Piece Ribbon Angel Art Painting
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Awareness Ribbon Angel Art

Most people who develop ASD have no reported family history of autism, suggesting that random, rare, and possibly many gene mutations are likely to affect a person's risk.  Having increased genetic risk does not mean a child will definitely develop ASD.
In medicine, "environment" refers to anything outside of the body that can affect health. This includes the air we breathe, the water we drink and bathe in, the food we eat, the medicines we take, and many other things that our bodies may come in contact with. Environment also includes our surroundings in the womb, when our mother's health directly affects our growth and earliest development.  Researchers are studying many environmental factors such as family medical conditions, parental age and other demographic factors, exposure to toxins, and complications during birth or pregnancy.
Children in the United States receive several vaccines during their first 2 years of life, around the same age that ASD symptoms often appear or become noticeable. A minority of parents suspect that vaccines are somehow related to their child's disorder. Some may be concerned about these vaccines due to the unproven theory that ASD may be caused by thimerosal. Thimerosal is a mercury-based chemical once added to some, but not all, vaccines to help extend their shelf life. However, except for some flu vaccines, no vaccine routinely given to preschool aged children in the United States has contained thimerosal since 2001. Despite this change, the rate of children diagnosed with ASD has continued to rise.  Many studies have been conducted to try to determine if vaccines are a possible cause of autism. As of 2010, none of the studies has linked autism and vaccines.
The above information was obtained from the US National Institute of Mental Health.  Read more about ASD on the NIMH website:             
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/autism-spectrum-disorders-pervasive-developmental-disorders/index.shtml


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