Autism is a term used to designate people who have disorders of the nervous system. This disorder can affect their daily behavior. Not only adults, autism can also be experienced by children. If the signs of autism in children can be realized early, there might be ways that can be done to deal with it. There are a number of signs shown by children with autism disorders. Here are the 10 common signs.
1. Always Avoid Eye Contact
The normal child will tend to look into the eyes of the person while talking. Unlike autism children, one of the obvious sign, they always avoid eye contact. You will notice they tend to turn their eyes in another direction.
If the autism child talk face-to-face with the other person, their body may be facing the other person, but their eyes will tend to look to the right, left, up, or down.
Difficulty focusing on one point is a problem that is happening on children with autism. Should you panic? Not really. Children with autism can be trained to be able to look into the eyes of the interlocutor.
2. Difficult to Communicate
Dealing with children with autism does require extraordinary patience. Not infrequently parents mistake autism with the introvert personality. The inability of a child to communicate is one of the signs of a child with autism but the parents are usually not aware of it.
As a parent, you should start paying attention if your child is silent for too long, even with their parents, it could be that this child has difficulty expressing words. Not only verbally, you can observe their communication skills from facial expressions, eye gaze, and body language. When this is problematic, it could be that the child’s communication skills are experiencing problems due to autism.
3. Developments in Old Learning
Most children who have autism disorders have long-standing characteristics in terms of learning development. This is quite often misunderstood by parents with weak children’s intelligence, even though it is not. Parents who have children with these characteristics are indeed required to have high patience to deal with them.
This delay in development, for example, is the ability to learn simple things such as personal hygiene. Another example could be the difficulty of the child in following the directions given by someone. Although each step has been explained in detail, children with autism have difficulty following these directions.
4. Sensitive
Dealing with normal children is definitely difficult, especially children who have autism problems. Children who have autism problems will show many signs, such as this one sign that is too sensitive. Not sensitive about emotions, but sensitive to sound, light, or when touching an object.
Children who have autism problems, their brains have difficulty in providing stimulants to the things around them. Sounds that are too noisy and light that is too bright can make autistic children feel uncomfortable, confused, and even frightened. There are even more serious case like difficulty in tasting foods that have strong flavors.
5. Repetition of Movements and Habits
Have you ever seen your child perform a movement or habit over and over again? Movements or habits that can be done can be such as shaking your head, moving your hands/feet in a certain direction, keeping the same expression over and over, or pulling their own hair. These signs are one of the signs of an autism children.
Experts divide this habit into 2 parts, which are lower-order repetitive and higher-order repetitive. Lower-order repetitive tasks such as clapping hands, moving objects, shaking the body, and repeating certain words. If the higher-order repetitive is like a routine that is carried out and accompanied by a very strong will. To overcome this problem, you can consult a psychologist.
6. Difficult to Socialize
At the level of children, they should socialize with the same age. And when there are children who prefer to be alone or in groups, they are the most silent children, maybe that child has a problem with autism.
It is already difficult in terms of communication, coupled with the difficulty of socializing will make the child more retarded. Autistic children tend to close themselves off and stay away from social activities held by adults. Adults perceive this child as a loner or introverted child. Before assuming a child is too quiet, it is better to try to talk to them and how they react.
7. Prefer to Play Alone
It has been mentioned above that children with autism have problems in communicating and socializing. The combination of these two can make it difficult for children to get along with other children. At school, children with autism will stay away from their peers. They prefer to play with themselves.
By playing alone, autistic children do not need to feel panic and difficulty when dealing with other children. They can play with their own toys and use their imagination. Not infrequently also autistic children who are too busy with themselves, do not respond when other people call them.
8. Difficult to Adapt to a Change
Children with autism need special treatment. Don’t get emotional when autistic children can’t follow directions to do something and didn’t do it well. Trying to change their habits won’t help them grow either.
Most autistic children have habits that they do and cannot be changed. When this habit is forbidden, autistic children cannot process it properly. Instead, they react by evoking feelings of discomfort, panic, instability, and even anger. For autistic children, doing something different from what should be stressful for them.
9. Sleep Problems
Children should get enough hours of sleep. Approximately, the ideal sleep time for a child is at least 8 hours in a day. But it’s different when it comes to autistic children.
Children with autism have problems with sleep or what is commonly known as insomnia. Just like adults, lack of sleep will not only affect the physical but also mood. Children with autism can also experience the same problem if they lack sleep. It could be that the child can’t sleep because the room light is too bright. Remember, children with autism have a high level of sensitivity to light and sound.
10. Difficulty Understanding Emotions
Many people think that autistic children have no feelings and that assumption is definitely wrong. Children with autism have feelings like children in general. The difference is, children with autism have difficulty understanding, interpreting, and expressing the emotions they see and feel.
Children with autism do not know how to recognize an emotion. Want it from facial expressions, language, and body language. They only understand the standard signs they are familiar with. It is not uncommon for children to misinterpret the emotions of those around them, even their own parents. It takes cooperation between parents, teachers, and experts to help autistic children in terms of emotions.
