Apprehensions of the Parents of Autistic Children: Challenges They May Face at Home and in School!

Autism creates special children. The disease was relatively unknown and rare till the early 1990s when incidence of the disease was as low as one in 10,000 births ( Source-www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15858952, Rutter M, Incidence of Autism) but due to some unknown reason, the incidence of the disease increased exponentially after the 1990s, with the number of reported cases increasing to as much as 30-60 cases per 10,000.

Autism creates a child that handles common situations very differently than a normal child. It can begin at birth or exhibit in the first two years of life. Autistic children are completely normal in physical aspects but show very puzzling behavior. They do not respond to direct eye contact, do not reply verbally, do not like to be touched, have difficultly in making friends, show funny and repeated patterns like flapping hands and arranging toys in a particular pattern repeatedly. Routines are comfortable to them and any change in routines can upset them. The symptoms are confusing and variable with nearly every child that is affected.

Autism may also vary in its presentation with grades ranging from severe where children have to be sent to special schools with personal teachers; to mild where children can interact with day to day life and be independent in classroom communities.

Taking care of children can be an extremely large responsibility and the stress on parents increases manifold when they have a special child. Till the 1990s, the disease was not well known and diagnosis by family physicians was hit-or-miss. Thousands of parents with autistic children have stumbled from doctor to doctor hoping to find a name for what afflicts their children. Theories about the disease also varied with several researchers stating theories like “cold refrigerators mother” that laid the blame on the mother for being emotionally deficient with the child during infancy.

Parents who were already worried about their special child were overwhelmed with the care and attention required to deal with the unknown disorder that had no name and no treatment. The guilt and sorrow was doubly carried by the mother who considered it a fault of her own body and health. In the classroom, teachers struggled to address IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) that contained strategies to use, but provided no professional development in understanding how to implement the strategies for their autistic students.

Awareness of the condition, however, has increased in the years since for both parents and teachers. For parents and teachers, more research is available that provides treatments and classroom interventions. But yet an unanswered question remains in the minds of many parents, “Can we have another child? Will he or she be autistic too? What are the guarantees that my second child will be autism free? Can I do something to protect my next child?”

The main fear in almost every family that deals with an autistic child is the probability that all siblings will have the disease. The fear is compounded as the exact cause of the disease is unknown. The anxiety of parents to have two autistic children in their family can be over-bearing most of the times!

Researchers and scientists blame genes, gene mutations, a poor immune system, environmental factors and defects in development, vaccines, heavy metal preservatives used in vaccines, food allergies and several other reasons for causing the disease. There are good chances that succeeding siblings could also have the disease as almost all autism is supposed to have an unspecified genetic component.

A combination of genes with environmental factors is supposed to cause the variation in symptoms seen in the same family and in all patients. But recent research has provided some hope for parents. According to researchers at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, New York, (Source- Sebat J, Lakshmi B, et al. "Strong association of de novo copy number mutations with autism." Science. 2007 Apr 20;316(5823):445-9) recent studies have proved that at least 15% of autistic children have independent genetic mutations which were not present in their parents.

There is a high chance that almost all autism cases arise because of combination of hereditary and environmental factors that cause the disorder. Therefore from all the information gathered, the two simple facts are :

• Genes and environmental factors combine to create Autism.
• If you already have a child with autism, then there is a chance that succeeding children will be autistic.

Do not panic at the facts stated above. These are basically derived from the scientific researches and the research is still going on in this field. However, there have been enough examples where the first child is autistic but the second child of the same parents is normal.

So there are fair chances that the next child will be normal. Take a good care of your health, remain stress free during pregnancy and stop worrying. Visit your doctor regularly and seek a professional advise.

There is enouch support available for the parents of autistic children these days and handling two cautic children at the same time may not be as difficult as you may consider. So, relax and enjoy your pregnancy! Keep a congenial environment around yourself and feel reassured that when it comes time to place your autistic child in a school community, teachers and support staff are trained and able to provide a comprehensive educational plan individualized for your child.