Some more on autism and how attitude and teaching matter.

To take a small example – autistic children rarely look at others in the eye. To get them to look at you, teachers and therapists may suggest exercises like making the room dark by turning off all the lights and then shining a flashlight into your eyes.

I tried this out and yes, it does seem to work. But then an autistic child is also more likely to make eye contact with someone who is friendly with him, affectionate, smiling, and in a good mood.

Go to any special school for autistic children, and you will notice that children of mothers who are cheerful seem to be happier than other children and learn better too. Are the mothers happy because their children are better or are the children better because the mothers are happy?

Psychologists and psychiatrists may debate but I wish every parent and teacher with autistic children would remember that they, like all other children, do much better when the adults in their lives have a positive attitude about them and accept them and respect their differences.

It bothers me how so much of the literature on autism and other lesser problems like ADD and ADHD  concentrate on, basically, how the neurons ‘misfire’ in the brain.

Read more about:

1. What is autism?

2. The drug Lupron - doctors say it is unsuitable for autism.

3. A portable communication system for autistic children