Why autistic children are "unbalanced"

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder in which patients often exhibit social interaction, communication difficulties, repetitive and stereotyped behavior, and limited interest. From the end of the last century to the present, autism has undergone a transition from a rare disease to a common disease.
To study the effects of age, sex and illness on cognitive abilities in autistic children, Jia Feiyong, a professor at Jilin University's First Hospital, analyzed the developmental levels of 398 autistic children and the development of individual-social, motor, language understanding and expression, hand-eye coordination, and found that autistic children had imbalances in the development of different cognitive abilities. In addition, age, gender and severity of autism also have an impact on cognitive abilities.China's autism education and rehabilitation industry development report, released today, estimates that china has more than 10 million people with autism and is growing at a rate of nearly 200,000 a year.
" children with autism at different ages have different characteristics, and early intervention therapy can effectively improve cognitive and language skills in young autistic children, as well as normalize their brain activity, reduce symptoms, and improve social skills. "Therefore, early screening for autism is very important, " said Wan Guobin, director of the Children's Psychology and Rehabilitation Department at Shenzhen Maternal and Child Health Hospital.
Wan Guobin said: "Autistic people often suffer from common developmental problems, including mental retardation, language disorders and attention deficit PLD, including irritable, problem behavior, anxiety, etc., in addition to nutritional problems, dietary behavior problems, gastrointestinal problems, sleep problems, epilepsy and so on." These co-problems not only make intervention, treatment, education and feeding more difficult, but also have a negative impact on the prognosmation of children.
the study found that nearly 80 percent of children have co-disease in two or more areas, a finding consistent with previous studies that most people with autism have mild to moderate overall developmental retardation, accompanied by language developmental backwardness.
are fully aware of the importance of early diagnosis and intervention, as well as the difficulty and complexity of ASD clinical diagnosis and intervention in treatment. Jia Feiyong said, "Most children before, at the same time or after the diagnosis of autism also found to have other developmental disorders, nutritional problems, physical diseases, mental behavior problems and even mental disorders, and most children have more than two problems at the same time."To study the relationship between cognitive imbalances and various factors, Jia Feiyong's team analyzed the developmental levels of 398 Chinese autistic children (337 boys and 61 girls) between 18 and 96 months of age, assessed the severity of ASD using the Autism Behavior Scale and the Child Autism Scale, and assessed children's mental development using GMDS (Griffith Mental Development Scale).
" is assessed on a developmental scale, autistic children's cognitive abilities are often 'unbalanced', with some abilities being stronger than typical developing children (e.g., visual information processing) and others (e.g., speech working memory). "Furthermore, gender differences, the severity of autism, and age at the time of diagnosis can all affect this cognitive imbalance. The
that children with autism have different levels of development and cognitive development, and that children with autism have better GMDS than girls with autism. Although there was no significant gender difference in the diagnosis of the severity of autism, girls scored significantly lower on the EYE-hand coordination and actual reasoning GMDS scale than boys, who had better visual spatial skills than girls.
" the ratio of men to women with autism is about 4:1, a gender difference that may be related to the neurobiological mechanisms behind autism, or to current diagnostic methods. "Given the high heterogeneity of autism, if symptoms and cognitive development are different in both male and female patients, the available diagnostic methods may not be applicable to all women with autism, leading to an imbalance in the gender ratio of autistic people. In
, the study also validated cognitive imbalances in autistic children, influenced by the severity, gender, and age of autism."This suggests that autistic children need to undergo a standardized developmental assessment to determine their comparative strengths and weaknesses before they can receive intervention or education to develop a personalized intervention plan," said Jia Feiyong,
. At , the main treatment for autism internationally is education and behavioral therapy. For people with autism, special education and training are the most important treatments, and patience and love can boost their brain development, says Yang Feng, a professor at the University of Hong Kong's Center for Communication and Communication Disorders.
Jia Feiyong said that in the treatment of autism, in addition to the introduction of evidence-based medical basis of applied behavior analysis, structured education, early intervention in Denver mode and other methods, China's BSR intervention model, PCBI ultra-early intervention mode are very distinctive.
" At present, China's clinical research and treatment of autism has reached the international advanced level. Through scientific intervention in autism co-disease, preliminary results show an improved effect on autism symptoms. Jia Feiyong said.
Jia Feiyong believes that in the face of autistic children, parents and society must first understand, tolerance, acceptance, respect, appreciation of children's behavior, and then happy, moderate and skillfully improve their social communication skills, improve emotional and behavioral problems, while identifying, developing, transforming special interests and abilities.
" intervention skills training for parents of autistic children is the most important thing. Jia Feiyong said, "Through parental skills training, children with autism can truly achieve high-intensity, sufficient time in the natural environment of comprehensive intervention, help to achieve good treatment results, and thus improve the prognostication of children with autism."
To this end, Jia Feiyong suggested that pediatricians should strengthen the training of autism common problems recognition, master the principles of common autism co-existing problems, integrate the identification of co-existing problems into the routine diagnosis and treatment of children's health care, and establish multidisciplinary collaboration and referral mechanisms to achieve integrated treatment of children with autism.
, we should strengthen the research on the causes, pathogenesis and diagnosis and treatment patterns of autism, seek innovative breakthroughs, and explore new models and methods of autism diagnosis and treatment. Jia Feiyong said. (Source: Zhang Shuanghu, China Science Journal)
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