Thursday, November 27, 2008

Autism

Just finished marking for one subject... Will continue to the next one.. In the mean time, I took a break before starting on the next paper. It is almost 2.15 am. I went to the kitchen. Treat myself with mee segera and a cup of coffee. Hope it can make the sleepy head away for another couple of hours. I switched on the tv. It was CSI Las Vegas, which I already watched. So, I decide to watch Oprah instead. It is about the Autism.

When come to kids, I am very sensitive. My eyes start to masuk abuk when I saw the parents sharing their stories about how to raise their autism kids. The discussion of parents talking about the heartbreak at their special children and the devastation this disorder has caused for these families. But not only that, they also talked on how it changed their life, become more patient and see things in a different perspective.

Autism is said to be mystery. 1 out of 150 baby is prescribed with autism in US. I am not sure the statistic in Malaysia.
It is a difficult challenge that seems to just go on and on. It is scary to think that how would you deal with the fact when you have autism kid, and even scarier when you see their development is very slow, can't take care of themself. The worst case is
the isolation parents feel from other parents who are raising neurotypical children. Raising awareness can help lessen that feeling of being alone. If we can't help to lift the burden of these parents, it is really helpful if only we can try to understand their situation.



How to know the kid is autism? According to the physician (cant remember the name) in the Oprah's show, there are three things that we need to be aware of:
  1. The language development - by 12 months, baby should start mumbling
  2. Social interaction - show interest when you call out his name, pointing at something to attract ur attention
  3. Physical behaviour - do they have some repetative behaviour? Eg. always bang his hand on the wall without any reason.
This website is good for more info on the sign of Autism .

In Malaysia, there is not enough effort to increase the awareness of Autism. It is important to create the awareness so that we know how to handle and face it if one has been diagnosed to have Autism. It also a great help if we can understand the kid when dia buat perangai at public. So we will not stare at them or marah2 bila dia buat bising di supermarket kaa..

I remember last semester my Entrepernuer student chose to sell book mark and put some words about Autism and share their keuntungan with the Persatuan Autism KK.

Ok, I need to continue marking..

3 comments:

CikSengal said...

ada student tahun 2 skarang yang ada autism ni.. memang dia sorang2 je..

LoveBuddhaBear said...

I think its more common than we think. I have some strange students of late and I am convinced a few of our colleagues including my own good self have some form of mental illness too :)

Mimi said...

so sayang i missed that show! well... did you know? i have an autistic brother :-) he's 27 yrs old now and yes, it is so unfortunate that we don't really have enough awareness of autism here in Malaysia.

Maybe i should do an entry about him, just a little contribution and effort from me to increase awareness... although he's 'different', he actually has a few talents that surprised us all.