Introduction
Autism is becoming a very common disorder with every passing day. According to the data and statistic provided by CDC, 1 in every 59 children is expected to be identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)[i]. The same study suggests that a boy is 4 times more likely to be affected by ASD than a girl. Also, about 1 in 6 children in the US were diagnosed with a developmental disability in the 2006-2008 period. Autism can have far-reaching effects on your child’s learning curve. It is extremely important to overcome the harmful effects of the disorder and help your child to learn effectively using the autism apps and autism education techniques specially designed for the children affected by autism.
What is Autism?
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Autism encompasses a range of disorders including communication disorders, abnormal social behavior, repetitive behavior, difficulty in cognition and mood swings to name a few. The symptoms though cannot be generalized for all the autistic children as they vary from child to child. Even the triggers for abnormal behavior in autistic children largely vary from child to child, ranging from foods to light colors.
Unfortunately, a lot of people mix Autism with mental retardation. Although a mentally retarded child can be autistic but it is not necessary that every autistic child is mentally retarded. Certain celebrities and high-achieving individuals of the society have shared their personal childhood experiences where they clearly suffered from autism but the disorder did not stop them from achieving high in their lives.
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Studies have shown that there is a clear difference between Autism and mental retardation[ii]. Children affected by autism can live perfectly normal lives if the right kind of attention is provided to them.
How Autism Effects a Child’s learning
Children affected by Autism often have difficulty learning through verbal and non-verbal communication. They are unable to follow verbal or visual directions. Some autistic children also find it too difficult to comprehend what is being asked of them. And thus their learning is affected.
The other aspect of learning is through social interactions. But since autistic children try to completely avoid social interaction or act abnormally when in such a situation, they are unable to learn through social interactions.
Repetitive behavior is another major symptom of autism that affects an autistic child’s learning curve. Children affected with autism do not find it comfortable to try new things and limit their scope of learning. This creates a big hurdle for the child to effectively learn new things that are important for them later in life.
Autism Education and Autism Apps to Aid Learning
Although autism poses a big challenge for teachers and parents alike, it is not impossible to counter its effects. Autism education has devised many techniques to overcome the learning issues faced by autistic children.
Teachers and parents must learn how to handle autistic children and the best ways to communicate with them. Each autistic child will have a distinct personality that will need to be studied in detail before finalizing the best autism educational technique to be implemented.
Similarly, the autistic children who are obsessed with certain things that lead to repeated behavior need to be dealt with accordingly. Often teachers have tried to exploit the obsessions by giving tasks relevant to their obsessions. For instance, a child who has the habit of tearing paper was given a task to cut out designs in the paper and the results were amazing. But once again every educational technique will vary from child to child.
In addition to the educational techniques used by teachers, autism apps have been developed to help children with autism to learn in different ways that do not hamper with their learning disabilities. Certain autism apps like Otsimo[iii]have been very successful in achieving the desired results of teaching autistic children new things every day.
[i]https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html