Treatment of autism in infants and children

Currently, the main treatment for children with autism is the application of behavioral therapy. When applying behavioral therapy for autism, different specific techniques are used for different specific purposes. The main techniques are the following: 1. Time-out reinforcement (Time-out), which means that whenever an inappropriate behavior appears, he is removed from the side of the reinforcer for a definite period of time, or the reinforcer is removed for a period of time. Time-out reinforcement can be used to eliminate a variety of inappropriate behaviors. For example, the child DICKY grabbed food from other children’s plates during meals and threw the food around while eating his fingers. The therapist used the method: “If he eats his fingers, take away his rice plate. If he throws rice or grabs others’ rice, pull him out of the dining room.” The result was effective in eliminating his bad behavior. Another example is that the child SAM often banged his head against the wall, the floor or hard objects. The therapist used the pause reinforcement method: “Once he self-injures, stop paying attention to him completely for three seconds.” The result was a significant reduction in self-injurious behavior and an increase in smiling and other good behavior. 2. Punishment, which refers to the use of aversive stimuli as a means of eliminating inappropriate behavior. For example, when the child SAM self-injured, an electric shock was applied to him. 3. Reinforcement of appropriate behavior, which refers to the use of reinforcers to enhance the frequency of appropriate behavior. Reinforcement of appropriate behavior is often combined with teaching appropriate behavior. This method can be used to help autism learn language. (CARR, 1985) learning socialization, learning good eating and bowel movements, etc. 4. Shaping, (SHAPE) refers to reinforcing behaviors that are slightly similar to the target behavior, then reinforcing behaviors that are a little more similar to the target behavior, and finally gradually leading to the target behavior. For example, the child DICKY needs to wear glasses but he does not wear them. The therapist first reinforces him to grasp the glasses with his hands, then reinforces him to carry the glasses on his body, and so on step by step to lead him to put on the glasses. This method is suitable for shaping various appropriate behaviors. 5. Chain method: It means breaking down an action to be taught to the autistic child into a series of partial actions, and then teaching and reinforcing him one by one. This method is suitable for teaching autistic children some practical self-help skills, such as dressing and undressing. (WATSON, 1973) Although behavioral therapy has been effective in the treatment of autism, in general, the treatment of autism is difficult and has limited effects. In the past, in foreign countries, children with infantile autism were often educated in special schools. Now the trend abroad is to try to get them into normal schools in order to increase their opportunities to interact with normal children and to motivate them to learn from normal children. Childhood autism is a comprehensive mental developmental disorder that occurs in early childhood. Treating childhood autism has been a challenge for modern medicine because he is not a physical disease, therefore, psychotherapy is important. First, the combination of compulsion and interest. Autistic children refuse new changes and new things, but once a certain information enters his head and a certain skill is mastered by him, he will try it again and again and experience the pleasure of success from it. Therefore, autistic children will go through a process of learning anything from rejection → reception → adaptation → fascination. At first, he may only watch for 5 minutes or even 2 minutes for the first time, but with the first 2 minutes, he may have 10 minutes for the second time and 20 minutes for the third time. If he persists, the compulsion becomes conscious and it becomes one of the things he wants to do every day. The compulsion should be accompanied by an interest to start with. Most autistic children have fetish behaviors, so don’t simply stop them, but take advantage of the situation and carry out activities in the aspects they are fascinated by, so that they can be cultivated in various aspects such as attention, comprehension, imagination, language, hands-on, cooperation, and interest, etc. They can learn to play and play in joy, and the information can enter their mind unconsciously in joy. After achieving the first step, we will try to transfer his interest from one kind of affairs to other things, so as to expand and diversify the information, and to develop in depth and breadth. Second, learn from life and expand the amount of information as much as possible. Children with autism are like aliens coming to earth, not knowing the world and not understanding it. The purpose of our training is to make them return to the mainstream society and be able to live, work and study as normal people, so there is little point to train autism out of life. Therefore, we should focus on how to let him feel life, know life, feel the environment, know the environment, teach anytime and anywhere regardless of time and place, and seep into life. At home, make full use of the resources at home, for example, about water, you can let it perceive cold water, hot water, warm water, you can open the faucet to feel the difference between a large water flow and a small water flow, you can let it play with water in the bath tub, give him a back rub, put all kinds of bottles to hold water for him, tell him what is splashing, what is holding water, what is sinking, what is floating, what is light, what is heavy, what is wet, what is dry, from the kitchen From pots and pans to oil, salt and vinegar in the kitchen, from various electrical appliances to furniture, from clothes and bedding to books and newspapers are all good materials for life. In the outdoors, you can guide him to look at the sky, look at the grass and trees, look at street light advertisements, look at people and cars, look at different buildings and different roads. For example, drawing, at home with a pen, outside can be painted with sticks, stones, feet, on the ground, on the hands, on the body, on the leaves; word recognition can be learned in reading advertisements, license plates, trademarks, door signs, reading books and newspapers. Through literacy, painting, listening to music, watching TV, playing with toys, playing with computers, playing games, etc. from sound, images, language, touch and other aspects of the input of a lot of information, not only let him have no time to take into account those stereotypical patterns, but also make him experience the joy of learning, the joy of life. Third, early intervention and persistence. According to domestic and international studies, the most critical age for brain development is 0-7 years old. For autistic children, the symptoms are usually found at the age of 2-3 years old, or even at the age of 3-4 years old when they are diagnosed to accept reality, which means that the most critical period for training autistic children is from 2-7 years old. Some parents miss a lot of precious time because they can’t face the reality or seek medical help, while some parents are in a hurry and give up after a period of training without seeing obvious results. My attitude is to ask for the work, not the harvest, perseverance, drop by drop, race against time, every second. The development of everything has a process from quantitative change to qualitative change, and the accumulation of quantity to a certain degree will produce a qualitative leap. For example, if you teach a child with autism to recognize words, he will not be able to do so even if he is taught dozens of times at the beginning, but suddenly one day he will be able to read the word very clearly, and then he will enter the “literacy sensitive period”, and it will only take him one or two times to master any new word, phrase or sentence. As the saying goes, everything is difficult at the beginning, if our information can enter his head, if the amount of information can be like a snowball rolling more and more, then one day he may be enlightened, once his head is enlightened, it will form a virtuous circle, and progress by leaps and bounds. The secret of success is: confidence + persistence + method = success.