INSIDE THE MIND OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Autism can be characterised to various degrees of impaired social interaction or communication, and a little insight can make us go a long way towards making social situations much easier.

Autism was once considered to be an incurable disorder, but that notion is gradually crumbling down in the face of knowledge and understanding that is ever increasing day by day. Each day individuals with autism are showing everyone that they can overcome and compensate for any challenging autistic characteristics. And the autistic children with simple understandings of autism can provide a tremendous effect on their ability to walk towards a productive and independent adulthood.

Theory of Mind in Autism: Theory of mind refers to the notion that most autistic individuals who do not have the power of understandings compared to the normal people have their own plans, their own thoughts and their own point of views. Moreover, it appears that they have difficulty in understanding other people’s beliefs, attitudes and emotions as well.

They cannot understand thoughts of other people and judge how different those are from their own thoughts. These are some reasons that make them face difficulty in relating socially and communicating to other people and thus are unable to anticipate what others might say or respond to various situations. This leads them to be more self- centred, eccentric or uncaring.So, the passionate love and care is everything for them.

The things that an autistic child want us to know about them:

• A sense of belonging (being a child): The autistic children expect themselves to be felt more than being just an autistic child. They are normal wards of parents like any normal ones, they do have capabilities of themselves and as a child,and they do try to discover within themselves their real capabilities, which is quite similar to those typical normal children of their age. They do want to build a separate recognition of their own selves other than just being defined as an autistic child.
• Patience with their vocabulary: As they are visually oriented only, they feel short of words to describe their feelings like feeling hungry, frustrated, frightened or confused, which are beyond their ability to express. Although one should be alert of their body language, withdrawal, agitation, or other signs when there is something wrong.
• Try and teach them social interactions: They are generally very shy and eccentric in gelling with other kids it is because they just donot know how to start a conversation or enter a play situation. They get delighted when someone helps them to start the interaction, make them join in playing games and help making friends eventually.
• Loving them unconditionally: These children do not choose to be autistic therefore must not have a sense of pressure of fulfilling their parent’s expectation and would not like to be reminded of their inability constantly. They must be loved throughout justlike a baby is loved and taken care of. Ex: gifts and treats like ice creams etc.