A genius could be hidden inside an autistic child

Throughout history, the human brain was brushed aside as just the white and grey matter. Everybody downplayed the role of the mysterious material between our ears. It's not more than for the last one hundred years that scientists started to give the brain credit as the commander of our movement, our speech and our intelligence.
Once it was believed that once you hit adulthood, your brain lost all ability to form new neural connections. This ability, called plasticity, was thought to be confined to infancy and childhood. Now the scientists say it is wrong. A 2007 study on a stroke patient found that her brain had adapted to the damage to nerves carrying visual information by pulling similar information from other nerves. Later studies found more evidence of human neurons making new connections into adulthood.
Meanwhile, research on meditation showed that intense mental training can change both the structure and function of the brain. If the structure and function of our brains can change why a mentally retarded boy or a girl should not become a genius? Why an autistic child should not be our pride? I am not a neuroscientist. But I have reasons to believe that the day is not far away when the genetic engineers will find an answer to autism. Meanwhile, if we cannot cure autism, we must at least care the autistic.
Today, April 02, is World Autism Awareness Day. A panel discussion on "Autism: Awareness to Action" co-hosted by the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the U.N., Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the U.N. and Autism Speaks was held on April 01 in Washington on the occasion of World Autism Awareness Day. Advocacy groups all over the world on this occasion would urge all concerned to take part in fostering progress by supporting programs and measures that help realise the vision of eradicating the curse of autism and rehabilitating the autistic people.
World Autism Awareness Day reminds us about our mysterious brain. This day urges the scientists to keep on their research in identifying the hidden neuron or the impaired gene in human brain that causes autism. This day provokes us into starting a battle against agonies of millions of autistic children and adults around the world.
Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that manifests itself during the first three years of life. The rate of autism in all regions of the world is high and it has a tremendous impact on children, their families, communities and societies. The prevalence of children with autism has jumped by 120 per cent in eight years, according to a new survey from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Married couples nowadays feel scared to have babies as scientists literally don't have any hand to stop a baby from being autistic and there has not yet been a perfect way to prescribe a drug or surgery that can cure autism completely. There are some hypotheses based on statistics as to probable causes of autism, but the research is still in infancy to determine the real cause and the efficacious remedy for autism.
It has however been observed that the earlier autism is identified, the more effective therapy will be. Researchers reported that eye movements in infancy signal autism. Early intervention can help a child win the battle against autism. But if autism goes completely undiagnosed or undetected, as may happen in poverty-stricken areas in a developing country like Bangladesh, there will tragically be no therapy at all and the baby who could otherwise lead a healthy life is thus doomed to live a painful autistic life.
I know personally two Bangladeshi families living in the USA who are struggling with their autistic children. One family by their sheer determination could cope with their child who was diagnosed autistic when he was three years old. It was especially his mother who alone braved the storm. The mother did not take any more child as she concentrated all her time and energy to cater to the special need of her son and left no stone unturned to help her autistic child gradually develop into a perfect healthy boy who is now attending the normal school and behaving as normal as any other child. What the mother did is continuous monitoring of her son's behavioural development in response to different tactics and strategies suggested by the physician. The child was nurtured in an environment where he heard soothing sounds, human speeches, and music. The child was given a special television which continuously showed him a variety of cartoons and animations during his waking hours. One day, the boy, who never uttered a single word, suddenly started babbling and then after a few days he started talking at the age of six. But the other Bangladeshi family with their autistic child has not yet been so fortunate. This family, unlike the fortunate one, has four kids and could not (or did not) spend their quality time with their autistic child who is still struggling with his painful life of retardation.
Parental love is of utmost importance in taking care of a mentally retarded child. We have to guide the retarded children through an unforgiving life. We should love and learn from the autistic children! They look so normal. But, they are locked away; they are mostly ostracised (intentionally or not), and suffer the emotional consequences all through life.
Autism is now better known as "Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) because no two diagnoses are exactly the same; however, there are characteristic traits of ASD. ASD has become an international topic of conversation, knowing no racial, ethnic, or social barriers. ASD affects tens of millions worldwide.
Many of us have experienced and watched the struggles of an autistic child to cope with his daily life, his fascination with strange things which causes a great many problems at home, his inability to communicate, and of course the struggles of his parents to cope with their autistic child who is usually very hyperactive and physically strong. The nightmare of this for the parents is one that is not unfortunately appreciated by the societies, especially in a developing country.
Each individual with autism is unique. Many of those on the autism spectrum have exceptional abilities in visual skills, music and academic skills. About 40 per cent affected by autism, according to 'Autism Speaks', a renowned advocacy group, have average to above average intellectual abilities. Many persons on the spectrum take deserved pride in their distinctive abilities and "atypical" ways of viewing the world. Others with autism have significant disability and are unable to live independently. About 25 per cent of individuals with ASD are nonverbal but can learn to communicate using other means.
Parents of autistic children should take comfort from the fact that many geniuses were autistic. Those geniuses were perhaps lucky that they were allowed to show their talents in spite of their weird behaviour at their childhood. Sir Isaac Newton, the most original and influential theorist in the history of science, hardly spoke, was so engrossed in his work that he often forgot to eat, and was lukewarm or bad-tempered with the few friends he had. If no one turned up to his lectures, he gave them anyway, talking to an empty room. He had a nervous breakdown at 50, brought on by depression and paranoia. As a child, Albert Einstein, the most influential physicist of the 20th century, was also a loner, and repeated sentences obsessively until he was seven years old. Both Newton and Einstein, some of the scientists believe, were to some extent autistic in their childhood.
David Barth was an artist afflicted by autism. His painting Vogels ("Birds" in Dutch) in 2008, when he was only 10 years old, stirred the connoisseurs of painting. David, as his mother says, keeps himself busy in painting. There are almost 400 birds on his painting Vogels and he knows the Dutch as well as Latin names of most of them.
Now there is a movement called Autism Rights Movement (ARM) that encourages autistic people, their caregivers and society to adopt a position of 'neurodiversity', accepting autism as a variation in functioning rather than a mental disorder to be cured. Autism rights or neurodiversity advocates believe that autism spectrum disorders are genetic and should be accepted as a natural expression of the human genome. Autism is essential to a person, not a disease secondary to the person. They say that wishing that an autistic person be cured is equivalent to wishing that he disappears and another completely different person exists in his place. Autism should simply be recognised as an atypical pattern of development like left-handedness - like Predent Barack Obama is left-handed - which doesn't necessarily need treatment.
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