Argumentative Essay On Autism

1955 Words4 Pages

Understanding autism, which is professionally known as Autism Spectrum Disorder, otherwise known as (ADS) can be a difficult task, especially for someone who is not trained in helping persons with disabilities. The first person to discover autism was a child psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Kanner in 1943. He names the spectrum disorder after the Greek word autos, meaning of or for oneself, due to the way the child display social avoidance. Many doctors’ believed in the past that autism was caused by the way the mother not caring for her child properly or ignoring him or her. There was also a time when it was thought to be caused by certain environmental stresses that cause neurological issues within the brain. Autism is one of the most misunderstood …show more content…

Programs specializing in the education of the general public are on the rise, as are many new treatments and behavioral techniques. People are learning what it really means to be autistic and some of the new treatments that are available to help people with their disability and what we as a society can do to help them. Autism has been misjudged for many years and some people have gone without treatment and were locked up in mental hospitals for the rest of their lives due to the ignorance of the public... The main problem is that there has not been any productive treatment available to help them in the past. The typical case of autism can be frightening to those who are not educated in the characteristics on how one can be affected by autism and its symptoms. It would be easy to be intimidated and overwhelmed by the reactions of people that have autism. There are several ways to diagnose autism, however it is in many cases not being recognized, and especially in children who have debilitating handicaps such as schizophrenia. There are also the children that may seem very normal and may only have a few symptoms, such as rocking or not being able to …show more content…

In the 1950’s many psychoanalysts who followed the Freudian belief system, argued that the condition of autism came from the parents withdrawing from the newborn child. The mother’s mostly being blamed for the infant’s condition. The name they choose for these dysfunctional mother’s was “refrigerator mother’s”, due there cold hearted nature. These women were told that they needed to pay more attention to their children or that they were disciplining them too harshly. Still, there are some theories that are being looked at in the recent years. Such as family genetics that is passed down from one parent to the child and there may also be environmental reasons. No one knows exactly how the environment has caused ADS; some theorize that vaccines are to blame for a sudden onset of ADS. Namely the measles vaccine is said to cause autism by damaging the lining of the stomach. Thimerosal is a preservative found in vaccines it contains mercury and has been linked to this disease. It has also been theorized that receiving too many vaccines at one time damages the immune system therefore causing autism. Research studies with family genetics have been done to identify how many genes are associated with ADS. These studies have revealed irregularities in parts of the brain in people suspected of having ADS. Also there has been a link to low levels of serotonin or other neurotransmitters in the brain that are needed to maintain

Open Document