The diagnosis of early childhood autism is the scourge of our time. Beginning in 2008, every year on April 2, the day of dissemination of information about autism is celebrated in the world. Diagnosis of RDA in a child - what is it?
An incurable mental illness, the manifestations of which become noticeable from about two to three years old child. The reasons for the onset of the disease are still not precisely established, and the number of registered sick autistic babies is growing every year, like a snowball. From this article you will learn the symptoms of early childhood autism, which doctor deals with this pathology, what treatment is and what the parents of such an unusual child experience.
First five years of life
Great joy came to the young family: the long-awaited baby was born. He was born strong, healthy and handsome. According to the APGAR scale, at least nine points. The kid grows well, he always has an excellent appetite. All vaccinations are performed as planned. He practically does not suffer from colds or very rarely.
Parents and doctors are not overjoyed at such a baby. But then, about a year and a half, the mother has a vague feeling of anxiety ... The kid avoids a direct look in the eyes. The babble stopped, and the child does not seek to replenish his vocabulary. In some cases, it can only make mooing sounds, vaguely reminiscent of human speech (in psychiatry, this phenomenon is called vocalization).
Parents are anxious to contact a neurologist. As a rule, at the age of two years, the child receives a diagnosis of "delayed psycho-speech development." A neurologist prescribes a standard set of nootropics in this situation: Cortexin (intramuscular injection), Pantogam, Gliatilin, Phenibut. Parents receive tips to show the child to a psychiatrist. But for many, turning to a psycho-neurological clinic is a difficult step. As a result, competent diagnosis is delayed up to three to four years.
At the age of five, it’s already hard not to notice that something is clearly wrong with the child. He stands out from the crowd of peers. Young parents have a question about what is the diagnosis of RDA?
Autism, schizophrenia, or mental retardation?
It is very easy to confuse the diagnosis of RDA with similar diseases. In the Soviet years, the diagnosis of autism simply did not exist. Although in Europe and the USA in those years, research was already conducted on its phenomenon. But in the USSR, children were given a stamp for life - "schizophrenia."
Parents often have a question about the diagnosis of RDA with a decrease in intelligence - what is it? It is necessary to distinguish between mental retardation and autism. These are different diseases that pass through the ICD under a different code. Often, autists do not just have a normal intellect, but also have some talents (excellent ear for music or ability to mathematics, excellent topographic orientation on the ground).
At what age is autism diagnosed? Most often it is three to four years. If parents turned to a psychiatrist in a timely manner, then the diagnosis would have been completed about the age of two years.
The trouble with autism is the inability to communicate. Often they have no speech at all. They simply do not need communication, familiar to all of us - these children are like from another planet. Often, instead of words, they make bellowing sounds that carry no meaning. For children and adults, this behavior is scary. As a result, outpatients often receive shtapms of "schizophrenics", "idiots", and "mentally retarded" in society. Peers often fear and avoid them, and parents forbid playing with autistic children. In fact, such a child cannot harm anyone - he simply does not notice people or animals around him. Anger and aggression are unfamiliar feelings for him.
Which doctor should I go to?
For an accurate diagnosis, consultation with the following specialists is required:
- neuropsychiatrist;
- child psychiatrist;
- Clinical psychologist (leads reception in urban PND);
- Clinical speech therapist (accepts both in ordinary clinics, and in PND);
- audiologist (to exclude hearing problems).
Young parents often ask, what is the diagnosis of RDA? To understand this, it is not enough to read articles from the Internet. This is a complex psychiatric diagnosis. Outwardly, the child is completely healthy. Moreover, autistic people are often beautiful. But when communicating with such a child within three minutes, it becomes clear that he, roughly speaking, "is floating somewhere in other worlds." An experienced psychiatrist can make an accurate diagnosis after only half an hour monitoring the child’s behavior.
Who diagnoses autism, which doctor? This is the competence of a child clinical psychiatrist. Neither a neurologist nor a speech therapist is able to make such a diagnosis definitively.
Analyzes and examinations, inpatient treatment
Often parents make a number of common mistakes. Many rush to examine the child comprehensively: blood tests, genetic tests and much more. Huge amounts of money are spent on this. Do not panic. Here are a number of tests and studies that are really worth going:
- MRI of the brain - to exclude the possibility of organic brain damage;
- EEG monitoring - to exclude epilepsy;
- audiological monitoring - to exclude deafness and hearing problems in a child;
- Get advice from a competent clinical speech therapist to identify the degree of speech underdevelopment.
In inpatient treatment, a child can receive a course of intramuscular injections of the Cortexin and Cerebrolysin nootropics. Also in hospital conditions, you can get an MRI of the head and EEG monitoring for free. The problem is that the little autistic is scared and unusual to be in hospital conditions. Unfamiliar conditions terrify him, cause severe panic. This can provoke a number of tantrums, withdrawal into oneself, dysphoria, a rollback in speech development.
ABA therapy and other psychological methods of exposure to a sick child
Fortunately, Russian psychiatry has stepped far forward over the past decade. Today in our country it is not difficult to get a competent consultation in a children's psycho-neurological dispensary.
It has long been known that medications do not help with autism. Yes, tranquilizers will help relieve anxiety, and antipsychotics will make you sit and lie still. But autism cannot be cured. This is just another warehouse of the psyche device, these patients are from another planet. And they will forever remain so.
World psychiatry has developed a whole science of behavioral therapy for autistic people. This development is called - ABA therapy (Applied behavior analysis).
Be careful: this is not a cure for autism. This is a method of psychological correction, work on which with a sick child will help him better adapt in the world of neurotypical people. Alas, even with hard work on the ABA correction method, many children will never be able to conduct a full-fledged verbal dialogue. So until the end of their lives they will be terrified in crowded places. Some of them will never be able to fully service themselves in everyday life.
Today in the Russian Federation there are hundreds of certified ABA specialists. They took special training courses on working with sick children. But we will be frank: there is practically no sense in these activities. An autistic child is different, and he will never become like everyone else - neurotypical. And “ABA specialists” set enormous price tags (from a thousand rubles and more) for the academic hour of their work. For families with a disabled child (where the mother is forced to leave work in connection with caring for a sick family member), these are unbearable amounts.
Alternative treatments
In the past ten years, forums and websites on alternative, unscientific methods of curing autism have grown on the Internet, like mushrooms. No matter how many doctors repeat: the diagnosis of RDA is not treated, it can only be adjusted - parents believe in a miracle and carry their money to charlatans.
Selling American and German food supplements, pills to remove toxins from the body, a half-invented and distorted chelation procedure - all this refers to alternative methods with unproven effectiveness.
Feeding his child with untested dietary supplements from another country, the parent fully assumes responsibility for the health and condition of the baby. Alas, in our country there are still a lot of people who are ready to do "business" in families with children with disabilities. Parents need to show wisdom and patience and take their child’s diagnosis for granted, not to buy uncertified medicines from their hands and through the Internet.
Disability Procedure for a Little Autistic
The RDA code for ICD10 is F84 / 0. Deciphering the diagnosis of RDA is "early childhood autism." A child cannot lead a full life with this disease, one of the parents is forced to leave work. Therefore, it makes sense to apply for disability in order to receive additional payments.
- After the diagnosis is established, it is necessary to ask the attending psychiatrist for a “slider” by specialist doctors. This is an ophthalmologist, otolaryngologist, surgeon, audiologist, clinical psychologist, speech therapist. We will have to go through a consultation with each of these specialists. With an autistic baby, this is very difficult and sometimes almost impossible. But without these consultations, disability cannot be achieved.
- Undergo examinations advised by a psychiatrist: EEG, brain MRI. For this, most likely, you have to go to the hospital. Or undergo research in paid diagnostic centers for money. Children undergo an MRI under general anesthesia. It is impossible for an autist to explain that one cannot move in a capsule - so anesthesia is a necessary measure.
- Go through and get the result of a general urine blood test in a city clinic.
- Take from the attending pediatrician an extract from the outpatient card about the history of childbirth and growing up.
- Make two photocopies of each extract, conclusion, analysis results. You will also need a copy of the birth certificate, parents' passports, child SNILS, registration cards (registration).
- With all this package of documents, go to the attending psychiatrist. He will compile the patient's personal file for the commission.
- Sign up for a commission that will decide on the status of a disabled child.
- The last step - after receiving a certificate to go with her to the Pension Fund, and then social. protection at the place of residence. The employees will draw up all the necessary documents, and the pension will be transferred monthly to the card of the selected bank.
The average monthly payout will be about fifteen thousand. A mother receives five thousand and five hundred rubles in compensation for caring for a disabled child. Of course, this is not enough for the normal rehabilitation of a son or daughter. But even such an amount is a good help for a family with a sick baby.
Varieties of Early Childhood Autism
Depending on the characteristics of the course of the disease, psychiatry distinguishes the following subspecies:
- Kanner’s early infantile autism syndrome (a classic version of behavior in early childhood autism);
- Asperger Autistic Psychopathy;
- residual organic variant of autism;
- autism with Rett syndrome ;
- autism of unknown origin.
Asperger and Kanner syndromes are common for boys. Autism retta is for girls. In their manifestations, these diagnoses are not much different. Asperger's syndrome is one of the mildest manifestations of the disease, but it does not allow the child to "be like all normal children."
Regardless of the classification, it is worth remembering that children with autism are mild, vulnerable, defenseless. Their inability to habitual verbal and verbal communication frightens and repels others. Meanwhile, autistic people often suffer from panic, horror, pain and cannot even tell their own parents about it. To everything, they are forced throughout their entire lives to endure the biased environment of "healthy and normal" neurotypic people.
Typical Autistic Child Behavior
A lot of rumors go around the diagnosis of RDA. In fact, there is nothing terrible or physically repulsive in these children.
Characteristics of children with a diagnosis of autism:
- They are often beautiful or pretty in appearance. Their gaze is fixed "nowhere", in some cases it is clearly defocused and does not bear signs of intellectual thought.
- Due to the lack of need for communication, many of these children will never master human speech (in some cases, they can speak in simple sentences).
- Some of them have a slight mental retardation, some are intellectually developed like all children (but due to the impossibility of communication, their intellect undergoes some subjective changes).
- They are characterized by stereotypic behavior - for example, shaking their heads from side to side, or swaying like cubs. When they are scared, they can bounce or scream loudly. In stereotypes, autistic children fall from fatigue and discomfort, fear.
- Vocalizations are babbling and humming that has nothing to do with speech. It is simply a physiological contraction of the vocal apparatus.
Considering that every year unbiased statistics on the registration of new children with disabilities reports an increase in autistic children by 3-4%, we can talk about an autism epidemic. If the disease spreads at the same pace, in two hundred years every 21-22 resident of economically developed countries will be an autistic person.
After reading this article, the answer to the question, the diagnosis of autism in children - what it is, you know. Now you know that if an adult child is silent or cries loudly, or is squeezed into a corner in fear, this does not mean that he is not raised. Perhaps he just needs help.
The most common autism myths
For ten years, in connection with the international autism epidemic, the press annually reports on the day of information about this disease. Despite this, there are many myths about this disease among the people.
- Autistic children are angry and abnormal. Yes, they really are "not like everyone else." But one certainly should not expect aggression from them - in most cases they are afraid and suffer insults from the world of "normal" people.
- Autistic children walk by themselves. No, this is not so - they are accustomed to the toilet later than their peers, but they are clean and understand why they need to retire to the toilet room.
- They have an unbridled sexual instinct and should be feared. That's a myth, it's a myth! If autistic is true (the diagnosis is correct), then throughout his life he has no interest in sexual relations and instinct of reproduction. This is a characteristic feature of this disease, which is confirmed by any psychiatrist.
- Autists are born to alcoholic parents and drug addicts. This is a common myth. Medicine still does not know the exact reasons for the birth of children with a diagnosis of RDA. They can be born both in a family of blue bloods and in poor conditions. The diagnosis is not affected by either social status, or nationality, or the age of the parents.
- If one child is sick, then the second will be born the same. This is a myth: studies have proven that the probability of having two parents with two autistic parents is quite small. It is about 5%.