For the last many years, life has become difficult for Mohammad Khan, a resident of Islamabad, and his family as his son has autism.

“My son, now seven years old, never behaves like a normal child. He does things without understanding the consequences. He even touches things such as fire without realising that it can burn him,” he said.

Most of the children don’t put their hands in a stove if once they realised that it can burn them but my son tries to touch the flames most of the times. He also gets frustrated if lunch or dinner gets late.

“Whenever we go to visit our relatives or friends, the hosts get annoyed over my son’s behavior. It is impossible to handle him,” he said.

“My wife used to do a job but she had to quit the work because it was impossible to put my son in a daycare centre because the managements of the daycare centres complained a number of times that my child can harm himself or other children,” Mr Khan added.

“We now avoid visiting our relatives and friends because we know that our relatives will be annoyed over the abnormal attitude of my son. We also stopped going to parks, hotels and public places because people always start staring at us and it becomes embarrassing that our child is not in our control,” he said.

“My relatives usually say I don’t know how to bring up a child and that I should be a bit harsh with my son. But I tried everything and failed. I realised that my son had some problem because he never behaved like other children of his age,” he said.

He said after seeing some doctors he came to know that his son was suffering from autism, a disease in which children do not behave normally.

He said he had been treating his son but knew that most of his problems might never be resolved.

According to an estimate, one out of around 70 children suffers from autism. Doctors say Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain.

The ASD begins at the age of three and lasts throughout a person’s life though its symptoms may improve with the passage of time.

Studies have shown that one-third parents of children with ASD noticed a problem before their child’s first birthday and others observed such issues at around 24 months of their age.

A team from Family Park Hospital, UK, comprising Dr Hashim Khan, Dr Jessi Frost and Dr Seray Ibrahim pose along with doctors at Pims.

Some children with ASD seem to develop normally until around 18 to 24 months of age and then stop gaining new skills or they lose the skills they had already learnt.

Dr Naeem Mughal, a consultant at the Family Park Hospital in the UK, who was in Islamabad to attend a conference on neuro-developmental problems, said ASD was the fastest growing disability in the West and 172 per cent increase had been reported during the last a few years as one in every 80 children suffered from ASD.

“It is estimated that autism can be four times more in boys compared to girls. The patients feel difficulty in interacting with others. They also face difficulty while shifting from one activity to other and get upset with a change in routine. They overreact to normal things and act unexpectedly,” he said.

When a child suffers from autism, the family life is affected and it becomes difficult to fulfil the demands of the child. Sometimes the affected child becomes the cause of separation between the couple because for mothers looking after the child becomes a 24-hour job,” he said.

Not only financial burden increases because of the child but it also affects the confidence level of the parents. The future of the child becomes a major concern for the parents, he said.

Dealing with a child suffering from autism is a skill. The parents should try to convey their message to such children through visuals instead of talking to them because it becomes difficult for the children to understand sentences, he said.

Small sentences should be used while talking to them. For example, instead of asking the child to come here and sit on the chair, we should point towards the chair and say ‘sit down, please’. Never say don’t do it, always say that do this or that because a child with autism cannot understand the meaning of don’t.

The effects of neuro-disabilities can be reduced by behavioural management, treatment and most importantly understanding the problem of the patient, he said.

A child suffering from autism at the centre. — Photos by Tanveer Shahzad

Dr Hashim Khan, who also came from the UK to attend the conference, added that if a child was dead the parents can forget him with the passage of time but those who have a child with autism die every day.

Zahid Amir Ranjha, a speech therapist at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims), said children having autism have learning difficulty, low tolerance level, hyper behaviour and become destructive.

“A child having autism has no fear, so he can do anything. He can damage himself and others. We used to receive three to four children of autism at Pims on a daily basis in the past but now the number of such patients is increasing because of the rising awareness of the disease among the citizens,” he said.

In reply to a question, Mr Ranjha said an early detection of autism was necessary because chances of treatment decreased with the increase in the age of the patient. When a child crosses the age of six years, it becomes difficult to handle him and after that there is no guaranty that the patient will improve, he said.

“Though we cannot say what causes autism, it is observed that there are more cases of autism where the parents belong to the same family,” he said.

“In Europe, physical disability has been controlled because they carry out abortion whenever it is diagnosed that the child is physically disabled but autism cannot be detected during pregnancy so it is a big concern for them too,” he said.

Ishrat Masood, the director of the National Special Education Centre for Intellectually Challenged Children, told Dawn that an autism centre had been established at her education centre.

“We have been providing free treatment, free pick-and-drop facility and speech therapy to the children affected by autism,” she said.

Secretary Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Hanif Khalid said there was a need to promote public awareness of autism.

“The only autism centre in the region has been established in the federal capital and it has been providing facilities to the patients,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2015

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