The Jeddah Institute for Speech and Hearing (JISH) recently hosted a forum to discuss the methods of teaching autistic children. The forum welcomed Dr. Cecelia McCarton, head of The McCarton Center in New York, and her staff.
“I came with a message to spread awareness among parents,” said the doctor, who has worked for over 30 years in the field. She says the number of reported cases of autism is growing worldwide. Studies in Scandinavia, Japan, England and the United States show that the cases of autism has grown from four in 1,000 to one in every 166 children.
In Saudi Arabia, there are currently 333 children under the age of 16 receiving treatment for autism, said Dr. Talaat Al-Wazna, secretary-general at the Saudi Autistic Society and Brain Diseases. The doctor recently conducted a survey of children and found that 0.6 percent of them had autism. A final report will be published this summer.
The five-year-old McCarton Center deals with children’s developmental disabilities and specializes in autism. The center in New York City currently treats 23 cases and will soon expand to 50. The center treats cases of autistic children that were taken out of public school. The center teaches them how to read and write.
At the JISH forum, Dr. McCarton said she believes there is always hope for autistics to have a normal life just like the other children. Autistic children are often incorrectly identified as retarded, she said.
Dr. McCarton says that the learning processes of autistic children requires special attention. They often score the same results in nonverbal IQ tests as children without developmental disorders. Parents of autistic children should disregard typical IQ tests, she said.
Dr. McCarton’s first visit to Saudi Arabia was to participate at JISH’s three-day symposium on autism that took place early last month. She told the audience that two cultures could take the same approach to treating autistic children.
“A mother is a mother in Saudi Arabia or in the United States,” she said, pointing out that a parent often begins to sense something is wrong with their child as early as three to four months of age. The symptoms can be related to a noticeable lack of social engagement or a regimented pattern of behavior. As the child develops, the symptoms become more noticeable, especially when the child enters the developmental phase of speech. Dr. McCarton says it is then that mothers start to notice problems.
The doctor pointed out that autism is not related to psychological issues or to upbringing methods. She says the cause of autism is mainly genetic, but may also be linked to certain immunizations that contain thiomersal mercury, and possibly some antibiotics.
Dr. McCarton said that autism is not just a speech and language problem, but also a behavioral concern. Treatment of autism can be made via a continued, comprehensive evaluation of speech and language, occupational therapy and applied behavior analysis. And at JISH, the specialists do believe in the effectiveness of three-specialist joint work, Dr. McCarton said.
The urge to provide more specialists who can treat these children not only theoretically but also practically is encouraged. The McCarton Center had opened its doors to train graduates and undergraduates during the summer. JISH specialists have been taking courses at the McCarton Center, and, as Dr. McCarton concluded, “Learning is always a two-way street.”
