Many families across the world have brought their children for therapy at Delacato Clinics, and a common thread runs through discussions, in as much that, parents noticed changes in their child's developmental progress at around 18 months to 2 years. In effect, development slows down or stops completely, from a child apparently developing normally, meeting milestones, to a child shutting itself of from the world and losing whatever speech it had at the time.

The timing of 18 months is significant, in as much as, this is the development point at which, the normal developmental process moves from control by the lower part of the central nervous system, to a higher level in the brain.

Any insult for whatever reason, in any part of the brain, at any intensity, has an effect of destroying neural connections from lower brain to upper brain. Loss of these connections means that, control of development of any critical component of development, such as speech, gross motor control, fine motor control, cognitive ability, is stopped or delayed.

The therapy for rehabilitation is to recreate those connections and restart the development process.

Anecdotal evidence from parent's, also suggests that, they suspected even earlier something was not quite in order.

From parents we can glean a number of signs of onset of autism and for the record are listed as such;

Colic, very difficult to feed, whether breast or bottle-fed.
May need very little sleep, restless, crying screaming.
Head banging, cot rocking.
Fits and tantrums.
Cannot be pacified or cuddled.
Child spurns attention.
Did not have stage of creeping on hands and knees.
Clumsy, impulsive. Often accident prone.
Erratic, disruptive behaviour.
Compulsive touching- everything and everyone.
Hyperactive in constant motion.
Poor concentration.
Repetitive play.
Toe walking.
Self harming, hits head, bights hands.

This list is by no means exhaustive and children often display some symptoms and not others, and in varying degrees of severity.

Be aware that many of the symptoms listed above are normal behaviour for children in minor forms.

Chapter Three - Etiopathogenesis of Autism>>

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© theautismcentre.co.uk 2004