Understanding Autism: From Symptoms to Support

Thinking someone you know might have Autism? This blog post explores core symptoms, diagnosis process, and helpful therapies for individuals on the Autism Spectrum.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that affects a person's social communication and interaction skills. It's a spectrum, meaning individuals experience symptoms in varying degrees. Here's a breakdown of key aspects of ASD:

Core Symptoms:

• Social Interaction:
• Difficulty using nonverbal cues like gestures and facial expressions.
• Struggles to develop friendships and share interests with others.
• Limited understanding of social and emotional reciprocity (taking turns, empathy).
• Communication:
• Speech delays or difficulties with spoken language.
• Repetitive use of language, like phrases or echolalia (repeating what's heard).
• Difficulty with back-and-forth conversation and social play.
• Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors:
• Intense focus on specific interests or activities.
• Insistence on routines and rituals, becoming distressed by changes.
• Repetitive movements like hand flapping or rocking.

Important Points:

• Somatic Concerns: Conditions like anxiety, digestion issues, and vitamin deficiencies can occur alongside autism but aren't core symptoms. Medication can help manage these.
• Social Desire: Children with autism do want social interaction but may struggle due to communication and understanding barriers.
• Therapy Approaches: Various methods exist, including:
• Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA): Uses positive reinforcement to teach desired behaviors.
• Floortime/DIR: Focuses on child-led play to develop social skills.
• Verbal Behavior Intervention: Teaches communication and language skills.
• Others like the Miller Method and Daily Life Therapy address specific needs.

Diagnosis:

• A diagnosis requires at least 6 symptoms, with at least 2 from social interaction challenges, and 1 each from communication and repetitive behaviors categories.
• Children who display some but not enough core symptoms may be diagnosed with a developmental disability with autistic features.

Learning and Development:

• Children with autism benefit greatly from direct instruction, as they might not learn through observation like typical development.
• Early intervention (25+ hours a week) is crucial for success in academics and social settings.
• Focus on teaching functional skills like requesting things directly.

Conclusion

Autism is a complex condition, but with understanding and support, individuals with ASD can thrive. This includes addressing core symptoms, managing related issues, and providing appropriate therapy and education.

Additional Resources:

You can consider adding a section with resources for parents and caregivers, including links to organizations like the Autism Society https://www.autismspeaks.org/ or the National Autistic Society https://www.autism.org.uk/.

Understanding Anxiety

 "Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained." - Arthur Somers Roche

Are fear and anxiety the same?

Fear is a response to realistically anticipated danger and anxiety is a response to perceived danger. 

The Anxiety Mechanism

Anxiety is nature's innate security mechanism. When a person faces a threat, there's an adrenaline rush that fuels and aids the instinct to either challenge the threat or escape.  Our autonomic nervous system has 2 branches the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. They each have a very specific role to play in this fight/flight response. Now let's take a look at these mechanisms.

Sympathetic Nervous System

When an individual faces a threat, the sympathetic nervous system activates physiological, behavioural, and cognitive changes. These changes help the person deal with the threat appropriately.

1. Breathing: Quickening of breath decreases blood supply to the brain.  This may result in dizziness, breathlessness, tightness in chest, blurred vision and a surreal feeling. The change in breathing rate also results in the tissues getting the extra blood they need for the fight or flight.

2. Redistribution of Blood: In emergency situations, we try to temporarily redistribute our resources to where they are most needed. The same thing happens in our body.  The blood flows away from areas like our fingers, toes, skin and into the muscles and organs that need it most.  This is the reason for the chillness, numbness or tingling sensation in our hands and feet when we get anxious.

3. Decreased Digestive Activity:  The decrease in digestive facilitates the diversion of energy to areas actively participating in the fight or the flight. Side effects to decreased digestive activity can range from dry mouth, heavy stomach to constipation.

Behavioural Changes: When confronted with a dangerous situation, our response, be it emotional or physical, would be to either become aggressive or escape the situation. In primordial days, this response was necessary for the very survival of our species.

Cognitive Changes: There's a shift in attention and focus is on the source of danger.   This shift helped ancient man to focus all his energies on the danger at hand.  We see this behaviour even today.  When we are anxious it is difficult to focus on anything but the perceived threat.

Parasympathetic Nervous System

Once the danger is past, the Parasympathetic system takes over and sets in motion a series of restorative process. The body eases into its normal relaxed state. The breath and the heart rate become normal once again.  Body temperature becomes normal.

However, some arousal remains for a while even after the danger is past. It would have been foolish for our hunter-gatherer ancestor to relax completely so quickly.  So, the keyed up feeling remains and only gradually tapers off.

The fight/flight response explains how nature has designed anxiety to protect us.  Therefore, it is important to remember that anxiety by itself not a bad experience.

When Does Anxiety Become A Concern?

Anxiety in some people gets activated even though there is no real threat. 

For Ex: 

Mr. A attends the wedding of his college friend's daughter. He hears of the death of another friend. This friend had a high BP.

This news triggers a series of thoughts in Mr. A. He too has high BP. He has a daughter in college and another in still in school. He's the sole bread winner. He suddenly has the thought, "What if I die tomorrow?" (danger)

He starts losing sleep. His poor sleep keeps him drowsy all the time. He is no longer able to focus on his work...

Anxiety becomes a serious concern when it interferes and impairs the day to day functioning of the person.

Family Psychotherapy - What it is and What You Can Expect

In family therapy two or more members of the same family are given counseling with the goal to change patterns of unhealthy communication and interaction among them.

Generally speaking, when a child or an adolescent is brought in for therapy for conduct problems,  the possibility of an underlying dysfunction within the family system is explored. The areas that are given special focus are: how family members interact with each other and the family dynamics - the specific role each member plays and the cascading effect it has on the others.

What the Therapist Does During these Sessions:

• Examines communication styles
• Helps the family set realistic relationship goals
• Psycho-educates the family
• Teaches the family distress tolerance skills and coping strategies
• Provides systematic coaching that facilitates adaptive and productive interaction among the family members. 
• Systematic coaching involves helping the clients explore and understand core beliefs about themselves. Core beliefs lead to unhelpful thoughts otherwise called cognitive distortions. Identifying and understanding these cognitive distortions will help the clients to reframe their thought process which in turn helps them respond to situations instead of impulsively react.

Each member within the family system has a hierarchical role and a specific style of interaction or response is expected from them. While these expectations can lead to balance and smooth functioning of the family, when these expectations are unrealistic/unmet, they can lead to  dysfunction not just at the individual level but also within the family system.

Goal of Therapy

The goal of therapy would be to focus on improving the current relationship. Bringing up past events time and again is actively discouraged. If at all the past is brought up, it is with the view of understanding patterns of interaction and behaviour. The clients are encouraged to make solution oriented choices. 

Family relationships are an important aspect of mental and emotional well-being.  Therefore, in family therapy, the emphasis is on interaction between family members. When one person within a family ecosystem has a problem, it tends to affect the entire family. In view of this, regardless of where the problem stemmed from and whether the clients themselves consider the problem as an individual issue rather than a family issue, involving families in finding the solutions that work for them is beneficial. 

The skills of a family therapist includes the ability to facilitate conversations such that it addresses the strengths and wisdom of the individual family members and at the same time support the positive aspects of the wider family system. 

What is a Psychological Assessment?

Why do you need to see a psychologist? It is even necessary? The previous generations never had to see a psychologist and they were okay... so, is something wrong with the current generation?

I am sure all of us have asked ourselves these questions at least once in our lives. 

I have no definitive answers to these questions.  But what I do know as a clinical psychologist is this: 

- The way we think shapes our behaviour and the way we think stems from our belief system.

- Both our family of origin and our environment contribute to these beliefs directly or indirectly.

- Maladaptive beliefs about ourselves and others lead to cognitive distortions (maladaptive thinking patterns).

- Identifying and challenging these distortions can lead to positive changes in the way we think. This in turn, can change the way we behave.

- Behaviour is mostly learned.  What is learned can be unlearned.  This is where you exercise your CHOICE. We always have a CHOICE.

The unlearning can take a bit of time. Trained psychologists can help you with the unlearning. Their role is to provide a safe place to explore your thinking patterns without the fear of being judged.  They can help you identify thought distortions and also, figure out where these distortions are coming from. This process is called psycho diagnostics.

Psycho diagnostics or a psychological assessment is a process psychologists use to understand how a person functions at both the conscious and the unconscious levels. These assessments help them understand how you deal with stressful situations, other life events and to a large extent understand the cause for your presenting complaints.

The techniques used for the assessment are

1.     Strategic questioning through formal and informal interviews

2.     Assessment questionnaires

3.     Projective techniques

4.     Observation

The initial session can last anywhere between 40 minutes to 90 minutes.

If you are struggling with a problem and need help dealing with it, you can call

94878 64894 or email connect2choice@gmail.com

 

How Yoga Reduces Stress

 

It’s an undeniable fact that stress has become an inherent part of our lives. The causes are myriad and often unavoidable. To understand how yoga can bring down stress levels, let's first understand stress and its physical manifestations.

Typical Red flags

You are stressed out when

1. Your snappy responses are uncalled for
2. Simple problems suddenly overwhelm you
3. You have an attack of brain-fag (your mind blanks out at  unexpected moments).

Physical Manifestations

1. The effect of stress on digestion is well documented.  Excessive stress can cause indigestion and ulcers.
2. Over secretion of cortisol affects the normal functioning of the heart.  This makes you vulnerable to strokes and heart attacks.
3. Insomnia is another by-product; add frequent headaches to the mix and you often feel like throwing in the towel.
4. Stress weakens and slows down your immune system.  You are now prone to contract an illness faster and recovery takes longer.

How Can Yoga Reduce Stress?

You obviously can't avoid the activities that cause stress. What you can do is counteract the with activities that drain all the stress from your body and your mind.  

Yoga is one such activity.

Hatha yoga is a relaxation technique designed to prepare the mind for meditation.  The breathing and the physical exercises help you slowly extricate your mind from the complexities of everyday living.

The ultimate goal of meditation is to consciously empty your mind of all thoughts.  As anyone who has tried it would know, this is not easy to achieve.

The first thing you learn in Hatha yoga is slow breathing. You'll have to concentrate as you inhale, and visualize the fresh air fill and cleanse your lungs.  You'll then have to exhale slowly and imagine all the contaminated air leave your body.  When you are doing this, you are too busy trying to get it right to allow the outside world to intrude into your thoughts. You learn to let go and just be.

Yoga incorporates slow and easy movements as you inhale and exhale. Unlike other forms of exercises, you don't have to tax your body more than it is willing to go.  Your muscles are not overly taxed and yet, you learn to feel every single one of them.  Over a period of time, you'll find that most of your chronic health problems have slowly disappeared.  You'll feel pleasantly relaxed with your mind and body functioning in optimum condition; like a well serviced car. 

So, now that you know how and why yoga reduces stress, are you ready to practice yoga regularly?

Note: If you are over 40, it's a good idea to consult your GP before you start practicing yoga for the first time.

For help with mental health and emotional wellness, contact us.

Nurturing Self-esteem in Children

 Almost all us, have a vision of what our child's future should be like. Often, we create a tunnel vision and strive to herd our children through it. All our responses to them, both positive and negative are based on this.  Most of us don't even realise this. We start hacking at our children's self-esteem very early in their lives. This is really damaging. The hurt follows them right into adulthood and stifles their self-confidence at the most inopportune and often crucial moments.

In creating this tunnel vision, we forget one very significant fact: that our children are individuals with a fertile imagination and a host of dreams and ideas that could possibly be totally different from ours. Our job as parents is to facilitate and guide them. Instead, we thrust our views on them and expect them to simply obey. A child's self-esteem is about how a child sees himself. Whether it is high or low depends largely on how we as parents and all the adults in his life treat him. We plaster kids with all kinds of labels like, "you are a lazy guy", "you never complete what you start", etc. These seemingly harmless ones could be just as harmful as the more hurtful, "you are good for nothing".

"How then"' you may ask "are we to guide our children?". There is no truth in the statement, " Harsh words are just as necessary as medicines. They are both bitter but they make you better". There is no need to use harsh language when dealing with children. It does more harm than good.

First, let us realise that we ourselves are not perfect examples of humanity. Next, do we practice what we preach? How then can we expect our children to be perfect?

When my son was six years old he asked me,"Do I have to always listen to you because I am smaller?" That gave me pause and I started paying more attention to him when he had something to say. I realised then, that his perspective could be just as rational, though slightly different from mine. That was when I understood that children are more than willing to meet us halfway if we can earn their trust and respect.

Getting back to labels, guiding children is easier when we build their self-esteem. Instead of using general labels, we could point out specific behaviour that upset us and explain our point of view. Over the years I have realised that when I shout at my kids, they tune me out. But when I talk to them calmly, they make an honest attempt to look at things from my perspective. 

The added benefits of this approach are

1. Their self-esteem is intact
2. They trust us and therefore the lines of communication are open
3. They are okay with the limitations we set for them
4. They face challenges and peer pressure without buckling
5. They understand their own limitation and are not ashamed of it

Their dreams may not be our dreams.  But does that really matter? All that should matter is that they grow into self-confident and well adjusted adults. It is these attributes that will help them weather the reality that is life. Building their self-esteem is the best gift we could ever give them.

Towards a Freer and More fullfilling Marriage

 Your marriage maybe good. But is it great?

It can be if you understand and follow the pointers below.

All around us, we see marriages disintegrating more than ever before. Does this mean that previous generations coped better with conflicts within the marriage? Not necessarily. Compromise and compliance don’t automatically equate to harmony.

So why did they stay together?
Was it because
- of the children?
- marriage had become a habit?
- they loved each other?
- they had to pay the mortgage together?
- they lived in a prohibitive society?
- they were just conditioned to go on no matter what?
- women were financially dependent?
It could have been any or all of these.

What’s different about marriages today?
The traditional male – female gender roles are no longer fully applicable. Most women today are financially independent - that’s one factor out of the equation - to the extent that in some cases it is a major ego bubble. Let’s face it - ego places false, counter-productive, short-sighted limitations on a relationship.

Now, let’s backtrack to compliance and compromise. Automatically agreeing to everything does not augur well for harmony. As for compromise – Beware! For that way lies the path to resentment and power struggles. Compromise not only makes us take on roles that sprout resentment, it also stifles personality, inducing further resentment; unresolved negative feelings accumulate and multiply like unpaid debts. The burden soon becomes staggering.

If not compromise, what then?
Co-operation is the new mantra. Co-operation is the axle that would hold together this two-wheeled cart when riding over those banana peels strewn about the Garden of Eden, we call life. For, co-operation involves both partners whereas compromise burdens just one of the two.

Most couples I know are opposite personality wise. Yet their opposite personalities work in their favour. Then again, there are those who hang on to issues like a dog with a bone despite knowing they are in the wrong. Score-keeping blinds them from seeing the larger picture.

I don’t claim to be an expert on relationships. But coming from a large close knit family – 18 cousins on my mother’s side and 25 on my father’s, I am constantly exposed to a lot family drama and couple dynamics. So much so that my grandmother was fond of saying, “we have enough heroes and villains in our family for our very own epic.”

How strong is our commitment  to our spouses?
When we marry, we commit ourselves to being there for each other, more than for others. But in reality, in pursuit of goals that in the long run don’t even really matter, we often put others before our partners.

Most of us are comfortable in our marriages. But are we truly satisfied with the way things are? The immediate reaction to this question is probably – “Don’t go there.” Because, we’d rather not open the Pandora’s Box and upset the status quo?

Be that as it may, beware of these trippers where we tend to compromise and then become resentful
- poor communication
- annoying personal habits
- constant comparisons
- disruptive parental interference
- different ideas on child-rearing
- unwillingness to forgive real and imagined slights
- never outgrowing manipulative behaviour
- the blame game, a futile exercise we often tend to indulge in.

Being a couple is about teamwork – is about being supportive – is being able to express ourselves freely.
Marriage seems to be a lot of hard work, and sliding back into old habits a constant pitfall. Is it worth it? If it is a non-abusive marriage – yes.

So how do we go about making the relationship better, more rewarding and fulfilling?
The first step is reiterating our commitment to each other. Next, down with the barriers that limit communication - in other words learning to co-operate with each other. Finally, having the courage to openly discuss issues we’d rather sweep under the carpet.

Having thrown out defensiveness along with the barriers – we can now honestly introspect - accept that it takes two to tango - that whatever ails the relationship, we are equal contributors. It takes quite a bit of daring to face our short-comings and trust our partners to love us despite them.  

With the blinders forced on by our ego removed – all our defensive barriers are now down. Won’t this make us feel exposed and vulnerable?

Yes. But now arguing and quarrelling become negotiating and brainstorming. We even realize that we agree with our partner’s viewpoint – a paradigm shift.

The reward for all this trouble … a fulfilling relationship; free from the limitations and red tape placed by ego, barriers and defensiveness.