Early Intervention and Diagnosis of Autism

Individuals with autism have a pronounced struggle in social interaction, social communication and may display repetitive and restricted interests and behaviour. The etiology of autism, however, remains largely unknown. These behaviours can be challenging for the parents and the people in the environments the individuals move around. Early diagnosis and intervention have proven to be beneficial to curb or manage the challenging behaviours in children with autism. Interventions such as sensory integration, occupational therapy, speech therapy, special education, behaviour modification strategies all help to bridge the gap that the child may have as compared to their peers and contributes to normalizing their development. Successful intervention follows a timely diagnosis and for this to happen, symptoms must be recognized by the parents as early as possible and also be diagnosed by a health professional. There are several factors which lead to a delay in diagnosis of autism and the consequence being a deprivation of timely and appropriate intervention for the child. Some of them include lack of genetic markers, the co-occurrences of autism with other disabilities, improvement or changes in behaviours as the child grows, limited diagnostic tools, poor understanding and lack of knowledge among professionals and feelings of stigma in parents and family. Timely diagnosis and intervention are desirable as it plays a pivotal role in helping children with autism improve their communication skills; reduce meltdowns and opens up avenues for better parental compliance. Parents have to be educated about the early warning signs through awareness campaigns, and professionals have to improve their knowledge of autism as it is their diagnosis that sets the tone for intervention.