Long term gains for children with autism have been discovered in national studies commissioned by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. There is a program named Early Start Denver Model that is aimed at a special curriculum to be taught in the cases diagnosed with autism at a very early stage, for children up to 2 years old.
Scientists have agreed that, if diagnosed very early, autism can be ameliorated and many of its simptoms can be made more bearable. The latest studies, led by specialist Sally Rogers of UC Davis analysed a gruop of children that were monitored since they were two years old. The young participants were split into two gruops and one of them was exposed to the usual, local treatment, while the other one was subjected to the more progressive Early Start Denver Model. The program took place over a period of two years as well.
The children were once again observed at the age of six years old and the results were very striking. The parents of children trated with the Denver Model learned how to manage with their children’s special traits such as being distracted or failing to match face expressions, as well as many other dysfunctions. Many of these problems have largely been improved now due to its innovative methods, while in the other case the results were weaker.
Other studies have proven that the age of the parents is also strongly correlated with the occurrence of autism, unfortunately. Statistics say that this happens to either parents who are very young, especially teen moms, either to elderly parents. 5.7 million children were born between 1985 and 2004 and studies show that out of this total, almost 30 000 have been diagnosed with forms of autism.
Parents that are older than 50 years of age are at a 60% higher risk of having a child affected by this disorder, according to the Molecular Psychiatry journal that developed the biggest multinational study. The study refers to elder parents, namely fathers, in comparison to fathers that were among their twenties.
It seems that the age of the father is the biggest factor at stake here, even more so than the psychiatric history of the family or other factors related to the environment. Even a big age difference between parents seems to have negative effects on the future evolution of the child, as a gap of then years or so leads to bigger occurrences of this disorder. And the main reason for this still remains to be figured out.
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