Autism, attention deficit disorder diagnosed, treated earlier and earlier Within days of their birth, healthy babies will look you in the eye. By 4 months, they will delight in others. And by 9 months, they will exchange smiles.
Jacob Day did none of those things.
Jacob Day did none of those things.
"We used to say it was like it burned his eyes to look at you," said his mother, Tamie Day of Antelope, Calif. "It was like a physically painful thing for him. It wasn't just that he wasn't looking at us; he was purposefully looking away."
Day, who has a psychology degree, suspected her son might have autism. She enrolled him in a study, published in April, that found that babies like Jacob are indeed at high risk for autism if they do not respond to their names by 12 months of age.
At 18 months, he was formally diagnosed with autism, about a year earlier than usual. Before he turned 2, Jacob began daily intensive behavior treatment designed to help him lead a more normal life.
He is part of a growing field in psychiatry called infant mental health. Doctors and scientists are increasingly looking for early signs in babies of autism, attention deficit disorder and other mental problems that just a generation ago, scarcely anyone thought could appear in children so young.
This from MSNBC.
1 comment:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18660812/
This post was about how doctors are checking children earlier for mental disabilities. I believe that this is the greatest opportunity to check for problems. If we had more doctors who were willing to take the time to look for deficiencies, then we could treat these children much earlier.
Parents need not be ignored! If they think that their child has problems then the doctors must take time to investigate into the matter.
The doctors must also educate the parents about what their children should be doing at different age groups. Then the parents could have a checklist to take with them when visiting the doctor.
MSNBC stated in their article that 17% of children have disabilities but less than half are discovered before school. If we could get all doctors to perform checks then we could help children before they enter school. We may see less problems with behavior and learning disabilities because the children would already be recieving help. Wouldn't this make our jobs as teachers a little easier?
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