Autism Awareness Month
Autism Awareness Month began on Sunday, April 1. My son Doug's birthday is April 1.
The fifth annual World Autism Awareness Day was April 2. World Autism Awareness Day "aims to increase people's awareness about people, especially children, with autism. The day often features educational events for teachers, health care workers and parents, as well as exhibitions showcasing work created by children with autism."
14 Signs of Autism That All SLPs
Need to Recognize in Children and Adults
- May avoid eye contact
- May prefer to be alone
- Echoes words/phrases
- Difficulty interacting with others
- Spins objects or self
- Insistence on sameness
- Inappropriate attachment to objects
- Inappropriate laughing or giggling
- May not want cuddling
- Difficulty in expressing needs
- Inappropriate response or no response to sound
- No real fear of danger
- Apparent insensitivity to pain
- Sustained, unusual or repetitive play
Additional Characteristics Associated with ASD
There are many characteristics associated with ASD that are less observable because they are based on developmental histories or happen in the home environment. Thus, SLPs should interview the parent/caregiver in depth. Some of these characteristics are as follows:
- Picky eating habits
- Poor sleeping patterns
- Lack of a social smile and overall affect
- Had a skill but lost it
- Does not play appropriately with most toys
- Lack of visual and auditory tracking
- Does not reach out when reached for as a baby
- Does not respond to name when called
- Toe walking
- Flapping of hands or objects
- Does not follow simple commands
- Hypersensitive to sound (covers ears) or hyposensitive to sound (no startle response to loud sound)
- Mild to severe temper tantrums
- Hyper- or hyposensitivity to pain
- Stiff posture with an awkward gait
- Preservative, either physically or verbally
- Impulsive and will not wait for needs to be met
- Difficulty with toilet training
- High anxiety level
- Feels, smells, and/or tastes objects
- Ritualistic with certain objects (e.g., lines up cars)
- Stares into space
- If verbal, uses pronoun reversals
- If verbal, refers to self in third person
- If verbal, echoes speech from television or people
- If verbal, speech is monotone
Believe It or Not Characteristic
Even I don't know whether to believe this or not. I've been a reader of autism for about 40 years. That's a long time, and certainly a long time to remember where you might have read a particular fact. I've only read it once, and I've never seen it again, but I have found over the years that it seems to run true about 80 percent to 90 percent of the time: "People with autism have long, beautiful eyelashes."
I always make a quick, silent note in my observations about "long eyelashes" when I do an assessment. I never mention it to parents, nor do I bring it up during an IEP. It's just something I note to myself. Does my son, Doug, have long, beautiful eyelashes, you ask? Ahhh, any woman would kill for them!
"Speech pathologists make good things happen."