Autism Spectrum Disorder - Essay Example

? Autism Autism Autism is characterized by various difficulties in the interactions, as well as certain repetitive patterns of interests and behaviors. Autism is marked by preserved cognitive and linguistic developments. Whereas atypical language use and clumsiness are also associated with the condition, they are not used a diagnosis features for the condition. Children with autism exhibit various speech and language challenges, among other elements that are central to social cognition. According to LoGuidice, Zachman, Huisingh, Orman and Barrett (1994), children with autism are often considered to suffer from deficits of social cognition, a point that has the implication that the cognition’s capacity is not adequate the conventional social skills. The deficits in the cognitive capacity come as a result of a syndrome that disrupts the development of cognitive and social knowledge. There are various theories that have ventured to explain the behavioral results or the social skill outcomes of the children with autism. One of these theories is the central coherence theory, which suggests that children with autism have a weakened capacity of conceptualizing an array of presented information. In this regard, children with autism exhibit the preferences of focusing on small details and largely count on the rote memory to meet the demands of the highly complex environment. Limited central coherence of cognition, also referred to as the gestalt processing, has the ability of rendering one to miss the cues that are essential to understanding the social contexts, and this could include the difficulties to comprehend the main ideas in the paragraphs or even in the general conversations (Waltz, 1999). Another theory is the executive dysfunction, which also gives acknowledgement to the point that child with autism have a limited capacity of manipulating the tasks before them to realize desirable outcomes. It is worth noting that there may be limited concurrence on what executive dysfunction could entail. However, it alludes to lack of essential skills that enable the executives to handle their job and include multi-tasking, planning, organizing and prioritizing. This implies that the executive dysfunction makes it difficult for the children with autism to exercise controls on their languages and speech. A child with autism may also exhibit characteristics of difficulties in organizing written expression or even planning to complete the class assignments. The theory of mind suggests that children with autism exhibit difficulties in accommodating other people’s insights, behaviors and even motives. They may also exhibit the tendency of talking about themselves at the expense of other people. Mastrangelo (2009) observes that the challenges in the social skills among the children with autism lie in the incapability to decipher essential cues that the environment presents. The common approaches and methods for language and speech for children with autism include standardized assessment and evaluation tools and methods and pragmatic assessment approaches. Standardized approaches are often used by clinicians, as well as diagnosticians and are very useful in offering information about the social abilities for children with autism. One of the underlying impediments in such approaches is that standardized tests have the allowance of constraining the pragmatic assessment tests. This is because the nature of social skills is such that it even defies the approaches that are founded on the standardized test structures (Zachman Orman &Blagden, 1991). The depiction of desirable behaviors is perceived as the individual’s social skill that relies on various signals of communication for spontaneous processing. This is reacted through the encoding process of responses that are multilayered that suits the purpose of communication, as well as the context. The most important point is that the rapid exchange of signals of communication should be fluid, allowing the participants in the communication to decipher the applicability of skills of each other, even when the skills are not easily detectable (Waltz, 1999). As an example, whenever the children engage in a conversation and wants to change the topic, such a transition should be subtle so that even those following the conversation can barely notice the transition. The transition may be considered inappropriate if the speaker actually mentions the intent of changing the topic. Standardized tests can be utilized to assess the discrete skills that are overshadowed by the competing variables. For example, in testing the processing of the auditory system, the assessment requirement is that the test should be conducted in an environment whose decibels that not exceeds 25, even when the environment is hard to encounter in real life social interactions. On the other hand, pragmatic assessment tests are aimed at standardizing the assessments for the pragmatic languages. The eventuality is that the tests need to feature additional social and superficial knowledge, as opposed to complex variables that underlie the pragmatic language that is needed for spontaneous discourses. For instance, in this assessment approach a child is given a social scenario where boy is interested in borrowing a pencil from his friend. If the boy mentions that the boy should begin by using the phrase “please”, a credit is awarded. In real sense, this type of assessment is particularly suited for children with high level autism. Whereas this test is crucial in quantifying the severity of autism, the results are somewhat confusing, and may give impression that the child belongs to high level class. As an example, such as assessment tool was used for a 10 year-old boy with autism, and who was described to have a lot of difficulties in socializing well with his friends and teachers for the whole day. The boy scored average, implying that the assessment presented the boy as not having social pragmatic challenges (Waltz, 1999). The exhibition of desirable social skills is also associated with the intelligence. More often than not, children characterized by high levels of autism also reveal low IQ test scores. It has also been shown that IQ performance and speech and language social abilities are positively correlated (Schwartz, 2010). However, also challenging is the fact that it is not uncommon to find bright children exhibit limited social skill capability and this constrains even the tests that are to perceived to be reliable. In regard to these points, there is the need for the autism diagnosticians to rise above the traditional view that results of autism’s formalized tests give valid information about suspected autism children. In its place, diagnosticians should seek to explore complex and functional components underlying human social skills. Conventionally, human beings regulate social skills such as those pertaining to language and speech via intuitive knowledge about how the peers interpret the situational cues and messages (Winner, 2000). Thus, such assessments should also involve the parties that are concerned or participate in the improvement of the welfare of the children, including the teachers, the language pathologists and teachers. Clearly, such a proposed assessment criterion is multifaceted. An appropriate evaluation tools and methods for language and speech for children with autism would include making observation of children as they interact in varied environments, conducting interviews on parents and teachers regarding the children’s social skills and consulting other parties and assessment tools. There are various treatment approaches for Speech and language characteristics of children with Autism and this include the common modalities for management of autism. It is worth concurring that any treatment or management approach to general autism conditions would go a long way in addressing the speech and language complication in children with Autism. One of the steps in tackling the situation is by looking for ways in which to transform the lives of such children, and that includes learning about the condition. Transforming the lives of the children with the syndrome does not require one to be a specialist. As a matter of fact, understanding autism through learning is often an appropriate approach as it enables one to help the children in a desirable way (Zachman, Orman & Blagden, 1991). The management approaches should be targeted at controlling the symptoms that are distressing, as well as teaching the affected children the communication, social and vocational skills that are age appropriate, and which are missed in the natural development processes of the affected persons. These are often carried out in line with the results of the assessments. As such, the management entails the employment of therapies and medications. Some of therapies that could be utilized include the cognitive behavioral therapies to foster stress management, and physical therapy to improve the motor coordination and sensory integration. The most specific to language and speech challenges is the speech therapy. Play therapy has recently gained popularity as one of the ways of improving the lives of children with autism. Indeed, it cannot be disputed that such an approach is outright. Interventions that are founded on the models of human develop should integrate interactions that are not only based on experience, but are also playful. These assure share attention, communication, pretended play and other forms o social initiation. Research indicates that child’s levels of development associate with methods of teaching, as well as the outcomes in treatment results (Michelle, 2010). Movie Review Section The movies I watched are The Soloist and One Flew Over The Cuckoos. The soloist is an interesting movie on psychological disorders. It is a modification of the true story from Nathaniel Ayiers, as played by Jimie Foxx. The movie documents how Nathaniel Ayers, having studied at Julliard School of Music, plummet into schizophrenia. However, in the later stages of life, Lopez becomes a friend to Ayers, a reporter. He ends up changing the life of Ayers, enabling him to lead a fulfilling life despite the condition. One Flew Over The Cuckoos is a story about an offender who fakes insanity in order to escape serious jail sentence. In getting into the prison for a less serious charge, the offender turns the jail rebellious. He engages the nurse, who is considered brave in dealing with the inmates with mental illnesses. The offender incites other prisoners against the nurse, comments on the nurse’s figure, smuggles in prostitutes and organizes to break into the nurse ward. Worth noting about the two movies is that ethical issues and misinformed attitudes regarding the mental illness are well depicted. This extends to the practices aimed at taking care of the people with mental illness, and that some may to blame for the plight of those with mental complications. In producing The Soloist, the author’s objective was that there are ways to effectively handle mental complications. In One Flew Over The Cuckoos, the author’s objective was that mental complications may target wrong people, as in the case of the inmate who faked it and ended up receiving the medications that would never have been intended. The movie that I like is The Soloist. This is because the movie does not have a happy ending, but also implies that improving the lives of those who are mental ill does not rely on mental professionals, but also other people. In this case, the reporter ends up changing the life of the mentally ill persons. References Mastrangelo, S. (2009). Play and the Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder: From Possibilities to Practice. International Journal of Play Therapy 18(1): 13–30 Michelle, W. (2010). Assessment of social skills for students with Asperger syndrome and high-functioning autism. Social Thinking Center, San Jose, CA, USA. LoGuidice, C.Zachman, L., Huisingh, R., Orman, J. & Barrett, M., (1994).Elementary Tests of solving problems. East Moline, IL: Linguisystems Schwartz, T. (2010). Factors Influencing School-Based Speech and Language Pathologists in Selection of communication assessments. Arcadian University. Waltz, M. (1999). Pervasive Disorders in development, Finding diagnosis and seeking help. Sebastopol, CA: OReilly Winner, M. (2000). What Makes The Person With Social Cognitive Deficits Tick: Inside Out? Winner Publisher, San Jose, CA. Zachman, L., Orman, J. &Blagden, C., (1991) Adolescent Tests on Problem Solving. East Moline, IL: Linguisystems. Read More