World Autism Awareness Day, to encourage acceptance and removing any stigma

Doing so would help not just people on the autistic spectrum, and those children and their parents, but also all of us. Autism, or more appropriately, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) includes a group of developmental disorders.

Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provides specialist mental health services to people living in south east England and offers a pathway for a diagnosis of autism in adults and children.

Wight said taking a moment to educate yourself about autism is a great first step towards understanding, accepting and supporting children with autism.

Once autism is diagnosed, multi-factorial approach with behavioural interventions, sensory stimulation, speech therapy, occupational therapy, which focus on the development of social skills, language, communication and daily skills, are needed to deal with the disorder, Srivastava said.

“He’s amusing, he likes to tell jokes, he likes to make people laugh”, she says. In the USA, by the year 2032, 1 child out of every 2 is projected to be autistic!

Executive director of the Kentucky Office of Autism, Amy Cooper-Puckett, said with many mysteries still to solve about autism and continuing controversy over its causes, some people view it in a negative light. They often tend to get stuck on things. Having a community that doesn’t support you makes it even harder. “Excess screen time also adversely affects a diagnosed autistic child”, she said.

“Part of the reason is that most schools which enrol regular students don’t have special educators or counsellors. A lot of people are still not aware that help and support are avail- able, whether that’s from the library or the National Autistic Society (NAS)”. The big problem is most people still don’t “understand” autism. School was hard and I never really felt that I got that school experience that other parents did because we never truly got a grasp of it in those early years.

Former Labour minister Kevan Jones was damning in his views on previous care, referencing a case where a child with an autism diagnosis was believed to have been excluded because he was too hard.

Anjum Hussain’s autistic son Abdullah is being home-schooled because a regular school had no programs for special needs children. Later, these kids are either asked to leave or derided for their inability to function socially or grasp academics the way a “normal” child would do.

Truth: Most people with autism don’t like being touched, because they’re highly sensitive to sound and touch, much more than regular people. “They only want children who follow the “social norms”, Dalwai said.

Dr Amatya said, “More than 300,000 children suffer from autism in the country though there is no accurate record with any government body”.