Autism Spectrum Disorders and the Anti-Vaccination Movement
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Autism Spectrum Disorders and the Anti-Vaccination Movement
The ranges of neurodevelopment disorders are classified as conditions with ability to affect a person’s social interaction, communication, behavior and interest. By the fact that such conditions are of a range, they make a spectrum of different conditions that are considered to cause neurodevelopment disorders (Karst and Van Hecke, 2012). The deficits characterized by this disorder manifest in earlier development stages and are perversely affecting the persons throughout their lifetime. Such effects will spread to the community and family who are giving care. In the recent past, the number of cases has been increasing above 1% in children as reported by center for disease control and prevention (2012). With the autism spectrum, disorders reaching pandemic numbers and the recent measles outbreak, parents, doctors and educators are taking a hard look at the anti-vaccinations movement. Is vaccination a choice or a civic duty?
Leo Kenner, a researcher and a doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States, first discovered autism in 1937. The name autism comes from a Greek word ‘autos’, meaning self, to describe a person’s act of isolating self. Other researchers across the globe also discovered the condition and gave it different names. Currently, the condition is diagnosed as autism spectrum disorder. The condition was confused with schizophrenia, which was then distinguished in late 90s and treatments designed. The cases of the condition have sparked over the years, being prone in the United States and with the current multinational reports; there is a general increase in prevalence, which currently range from 0.07%-0.18% (Fombonne, Grinker, Kim, Young, Koh, Laska, Leventhal, Lim, 2011). This can be attributed to increased public awareness and diagnostic criteria that enable people and caregivers appropriately to report the cases as compared to the past. Blend of techniques are engaged in determining the prevalence rates as appropriate to carter for all the possible cases for accurate statistics.
Causes, Symptoms and Characteristics
Children suffering from this condition have a problem building social interactions, appropriately responding to social cues, engaging in conversations and taking part in normal activities as appropriate (Rider & Sigelman, 2015). Those suffering from the disorder tend to have difficulties in communication and developing language skills. As much as others may develop the language skills, their mastery will always be awkward as they cannot keep on participating in a conversation. They tend to be attracted to similarity and patterns and become attracted to some kind of objects around them. Even those who are able intellectually may tend to have their own repeated pattern of doing things and are sensitive to any single alteration in their environment, which might cause them displeasure.
The social impairment worries most, as the victims seem to live in their own world and they find social interaction strange. They can hardly participate on group activities; neither do they get comfort in maintaining eye contact. They are never vigilant to people’s thoughts and feelings, with varied reactions depending on the cause and the nature of their deficiency. The symptoms and causes of the condition are peculiar to individuals and might not likely to be the same for everyone. The disorder can be diagnosed as mild or severe depending on the pervasive development disorder and a child’s disintegration. This deficiency inflicts a child from birth and may be discovered later due to initial normal behavior of the child or delayed diagnosis by a physician. Autistic infants can be observed not to display the normal behavior and response of children even to obvious stimuli, visual focus on scenes and dismissed attention, such babies lack imitative behaviors, mutual smiling and turn taking. Autism spectrum disorder may manifest with different disorder, and this makes its diagnosis challenging. For instance, a good number of the children suffering from the disorder have intellectual disabilities and lower IQ.
Autism can be viewed as a development different from normal development, depicting social impairment. Autistic children portray varied neurological abnormality and parents to autistic children may be said to have the traits themselves. Poor parenting cannot be associated with autism, but gene mutations and repeated DNA sequences are the cause. Environmental influences and chemicals can also trigger autism in the event that they interact with genetic predisposition. Earlier stressing events that distract the normal development and pregnancy related complications are also not left out the list of causes.
Diagnosis and Treatment
Autism exists through a person’s lifetime once diagnosed. Those suffering from the condition cannot undertake the normal life processes and will often rely on being supported. Speech and cognition are some factors that can be considered in the event of diagnosis. Poor muscular coordination and psychological challenges may manifest the presence of the disorder. There are no medications to treat the disorder. Some of the drugs used are just to control behavioral problems and enable children benefit from development programs. According to Rider and Sigelman (2015), programming of behavior and education structurally throughout childhood with the family support is an effective remedy. This enables the shaping of the language skills, behavior change and brain development of a child, from the initial sensitive stages until the results are achieved.
The Ant-Vaccination Movement
The crusades against child vaccination have risen because of claims that they contribute to autism raising fears among parents (Rider & Sigelman 2015). People may tend to believe in such claims while the vaccination may have been administered at a period when an autistic child would start displaying the symptoms (Barrett, Bazzano, Zeldin, Lehrer & Schuster, 2012). The myth keeps penetrating basing on the influence of the people spreading it. By the end of the day, the rates of autism keeps rising as the other disease outbreaks are experienced. The increased cases of autism are because of increased awareness, expanded spectrum and increased diagnosis of the disorder. Therefore, the cases that were in existence all along also tend to be diagnosed under the disorder. The diagnosis of autism also has variations that are credited to the increase in the number of cases. The assertion has so far however been rejected scientifically even though the theory continues to spread and influences people’s attitude. The current outbreak of diseases such as measles in the autism prone areas can be linked to the parents’ attitude.
Conclusion
Autism spectrum disorder is a disorder that took decades fully to discover, and even to date, researches are still underway on issues surrounding it. With the expansions of its definition to include all the symptoms within the spectrum, the number of cases has so far increased in the recent past. Researches so far have linked the disorder to genetic dispositions and alteration together with exposure to environmental factors at infancy. Awareness continue to be created on how to prevent the disorder and its diagnosis with proper treatment still being worked on since so far there is no single agreed form of treatment. The available remedies are used to control the situation and improve child development at the early stages when the development process can easily be manipulated all round. Just as other conditions and aspects, there are myths that have been generated over the disorder which so far have been refuted by scientists but causing serious epidemiological concerns such as outbreaks. Studies are still being undertaken to make developments about the matter to shed more light on how to handle it and increase awareness.