Special Children's Day: one in 100 is on the autistic spectrum

According to the Center of Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), an agency linked to the United States government, one child in every 100 born has Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), showing a significant increase over time. A few years ago, there was one case for every 500 children. It is estimated that, worldwide, 70 million people have ASD, 2 million of which in Brazil.

The Special Child Day, celebrated today (9), aims to reflect on the importance of inclusion and guaranteeing the rights of children who have some type of special need, in order to improve their quality of life and help their development, even with all the limitations.

Dr. Danielle H. Admoni, a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Escola Paulista de Medicina (Unifesp) and a specialist for the Brazilian Psychiatric Association (ABP), told Agência Brasil that the diagnosis begins with the observation of the child's behavior. ASD involves a group of neurodevelopmental diseases, with early onset (before 2 or 3 years of age), and which are characterized by two main aspects, which are difficulty in social interaction and difficulty in communication. A neurotypical child, in contrast, who does not have neurodevelopmental problems, begins to interact with other people around 4 to 6 months of age, he explained.

Insertion

In addition to being monitored by a multidisciplinary team, Danielle Admoni also considered the inclusion of children with ASD in the lives of children to be essential. “What we always expect for children with ASD is inclusion. The main issues for children with ASD are speech, that is, language, and socialization”.

Hence the importance of children with this disorder being enrolled in school and, preferably, in regular classes. “What we always expect from the school is precisely to develop these two things. The more the child is able to communicate with other children, the better their language, their speech, and the better their socialization will be. Because we learn by copying. For example, if you smile at the baby and he doesn't have ASD, he smiles back at you. And so the child grows, copying the behavior of the parents and becoming a sociable being”.

A child with ASD does not have this ability to copy. But the fact that she lives and is with other people, knowing what the social rules are, what she can and cannot do, is fundamental. “That's why we insist so much that the child with ASD has to participate in school, normally”. The psychiatrist highlighted that, before, there were special classes and schools for children with special needs. “What we want is the opposite. It's that the child is really inserted in society, that individuals learn to live with people with ASD and they learn to live with neurotypical people”.

no discrimination

The National Education Plan (PNE) establishes that Brazil must include all students from 4 to 17 years old in school. Students with special needs should preferably be enrolled in regular classes. For this, Brazil must guarantee the entire inclusive educational system, multifunctional resource rooms, classes, schools or specialized services, public or affiliated. The subject concerns the social inclusion of children with physical and intellectual disabilities. The educational proposal is to offer quality education to everyone, without discrimination, encouraging special students to attend the same schools as other children.

Data from the School Census released by the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Inep) reveal that between 2014 and 2018, the number of enrollments of students with special needs grew by 33.2% across the country. In the same period, the percentage of those included in common classes also increased from 87.1% to 92.1%.

In 2014, there were 886,815 students with disabilities, high abilities and pervasive developmental disorders enrolled in Brazilian schools. That number has evolved each year. Between 2017 and 2018, there was an increase of approximately 10.8% in enrollments, reaching around 1.2 million in 2018.

Focus

The focus of monitoring to be given to children with ASD will depend on each one of them, because some have normal intelligence, while others have above or below average intelligence, said the psychiatrist. In general, specialists insist on two points: first, the school and, second, follow-up with a speech therapist. “It's the least you can do with a child with ASD, because she always has a language difficulty. This is part of the diagnosis. What we want is for that child to talk and the sooner he is stimulated, the greater the chance he will speak and communicate better”.

Danielle said that the combination of school and speech is ideal, but admitted that in the public health service there is no speech therapist for everyone and neither schools can handle all the work. He clarified that there are specific therapies for each child with ASD, but inclusion in school and treatment with speech should be for everyone. Physical and artistic activities are not accepted equally by all children with ASD, he explained.

For mothers and fathers who suspect that their child is autistic, the professor at UNIFESP recommended that they look for a mental health professional who knows how to make this diagnosis, “which is not so simple”. He emphasized that each child is different. Therefore, it requires that each accompaniment is individualized for her. “But always think about the following: we have to try to make the child have as normal a life as possible”.

Skills

Danielle denied the fantasy that autism is a very serious thing. “I always say: the deficiencies we have already seen, we already know what it is. The child has difficulties with language, socialization, difficulties with routine, with changes. All this we already know. Now let's go after what we don't know, which are the good qualities of this child, because that's what we have to encourage”, he explained.

He gave the example of an adult autistic patient who has an incredible memory. He took a civil service exam, passed and is consulted at work all the time by his colleagues, because he knows the Constitution by heart. “He thinks it's great! He made good use of that ability he has for a super functional thing. He managed to insert himself and is studying law. That's what we're talking about. We know that there is a disability. So, let's go after what is cool about the person, to stimulate. We don't have to think of ASD as a disease. Having this diagnosis does not mean the end of the world”. She admitted, on the other hand, that it is not easy to be the mother of an autistic person, but she assured that it is necessary to chase the abilities of these children, and not just their deficiencies.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1 billion people in the world have some type of disability and one in ten is a child. In Brazil, 45.6 million people are disabled. Of these, 7.5% are children up to 14 years of age, according to the latest census by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 2010, which is equivalent to around 3.5 million children.

Text translated using artificial intelligence.