“Different, but Not Less” ~ Students with Autism

Assalamualaikum and hey everybody!

I started to write last night but have limited ideas to write and haven’t study much about autism. So, I decided to continue this morning. Before I proceed, I’d like to let you read something, maybe a poem, I don’t know…

Yesterdays

you’re like one of my sisters,

you’ve been a good listener of mine,

 I felt very contented with your stories,

we exchanged stories, laughing and enjoy together,

I forgot about how far I am from my family,

but

Nowadays

you’re like stranger to me,

you’re not even face me when I talk,

we’re no longer exchange stories

we’re like strangers,

have I done anything wrong,

I’m too afraid to ask…

by: Nadia

Let’s forget about this first, I’ll tell you later if you want to know the reason I come up with this so-called poem.

‘Different, but Not Less’ I like this line. Temple’s mother uses to describe Temple to one of her teachers in the movie, ‘Temple Grandin’. I know more about autistic after watching this movie. Autistic can also success in their learning. For instance, I’ve read about Nabil Lutfi who has high functioning autism, got 9 A’s in SPM!!! (OKU category)  this morning. So, it proves that autistic can also be a successful even they are quite slower than the other normal students. However, they also can be better than a normal student if they work harder.

Nabi Lutfi with his honourable achievement!
Kuantan: Penyakit autisme yang dikesan sejak berada di sekolah rendah lagi tidak menghalang seorang pelajar daripada mendapat keputusan cemerlang 9A dalam peperiksaan Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) 2012 yang diumumkan semalam.

You can read further about him here http://www.hmetro.com.my (setempat)

So, let’s discuss further about the ‘Autism‘ or also called as ‘Autism Spectrum Disorders‘ (ASD).

Definition

• Based on Anita Woolfolk in her Educational Psychology book, Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorders can be defined as developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and non-verbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age 3 and ranging from mild to major.She stated that about 1 in every 150 children is born with autism.

• Autism is known as a complex developmental disability. Experts believe that Autism presents itself during the first three years of a person’s life. The condition is the result of a neurological disorder that has an effect on normal brain function, affecting development of the person’s communication and social interaction skills. People with autism have issues with non-verbal communication, a wide range of social interactions, and activities that include an element of play and/or banter. (source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com )

So, what I understand about autism is it will delayed children’s developmental in social interaction, communication and learning, it will be appear or parents can realize whether their child has this disability or not since the child at the age of 3 years old (approximately) and ranging from mild to major (severeness).

Characteristics There are several characteristics of autistic.

• Difficulty relating to people, objects and events. Children with autism will have difficulty in adapting new things in their life as they need to be introduced or informed  earlier to prevent from surprised and can’t accept it at all.

• Repetitive movements. They loves to do rocking, spinning, finger snapping, hand flapping  and etc. repetitively. We can’t stop them and if we do force them to stop, things will be much disaster. So, what can we do as teacher or parents, we can distract them to do other things slowly and gradually to stop them doing that.

• Insistence on sameness in the environment and in following routines; marked distress over changes in trivial aspects of either. Children with autism like predictability. Routine can be seen as their best friend and parts of their life. Changes in their life can affect their quality of life if those were done with force. However, we can teach them to cope better with the changes.

• Avoidance of eye contact. They normally avoid and hardly doing eye contact when communicate.

• Impaired communication skills both verbal and non-verbal. The affect on communication skills of children with autism are determined by the severity of the autism. Based on medicalnewstoday.com, many students with ASD do not speak at all (but I have hesitation with this statement, if you know better, please tell me okay?)

• Unconventional use of toys and objects. Teacher and parents found that some times the children would use toys and objects in totally different way as it supposed to be used.

• Impairment of social interaction and abnormal social play. Children with this disability have different social play and sometimes unpredictable.

• Avoid physical contact. They hate to be hugged, tickled, cuddled or being touched by others. I’m not saying all of them, but some will might respond completely different like normal child did.

• Sensitivity towards loud noises, some smells and light. They are sensitive with loud noises (as I stated earlier in my previous post https://nurulnadiaabubakar.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/thinking-in-pictures-my-life-with-autism/) . They will react instantly when they are not prepared to the loud noises, smells or the light.

• Cognitive problems in attention, organization, and sequencing. As they have difficulty to pay attention, teacher need to attract their interest from time to time. Autistic student also has difficulty managing their behavior without structure, thus, teacher should develop individual and group behavior plans.

I’ve just mention the severe one, but you can freely search for more at this website www.medicalnewstoday.com

Ehm before I end this post, I would like to share with you guys about something.

Autism Awareness

Some said that people with autism DON’T have feeling! Believe me, this is only a myth! Created by ignorance people who don’t even care to know about autism. People with autism DO have feelings, they feel the love, happiness, sadness and pain just like everyone else but with different way, their own way. So, people out there, please be careful with what you’re going to say and spread away. You might cause confusion and gave wrong information about autism!

Spread the words! thanks you ❤

Till we meet again,

In shaa Allah 🙂

Assalamualaikum!