On this page, you can see our view on autism in contrast to classic medical view. We want to say in advance that we are not experts on autism - we are just parents, so we can be easily wrong. But we have experiences that parents often have better estimate than experts. We are not doctors, but we have nearly always seen the state of our son better. We are not genetists, but we didn't trust to the genetic diagnosis of our son which we have got in our country - and we were right.

It is a pervasive disorder, what means that it goes through the whole person. It is visible from one's behavior. Autism shows itself already in earthly childhood. It is difficult for autists to perceive inputs from environment and from people. Communication so common for us is very difficult for autists, it is abstract and unintelligible, so they prefer existence in the world of objects and in their own world.

Preferencing non-living objects to contacts with human beings is typical for autistic children. They live in their own world, which they understand and which they are able to manipulate. They often have their 'tantras' - repetitive behaviors (marked as inappropriate behaviors) with which they are fascinated and they can do them again and again for hours. These can include spinning, wagging with head or body, game with fingers, opening and shutting doors, games with lights or just staring to the light, specific games with objects... Absence of eye contact is typical. They often seem as if they don't hear or see - do not react to inputs.

The answer is questionable. There are speculations that such factors as illness, antibiotics or vaccination can trigger autism. There are also suggestions that genetic predispositions can play some role. There is also theory that autism is metabolic disorder (see GFCF). Probably autism is caused by combinations of more than one factor. 

In the world of specialists, autism is taken as everlasting, non-curable state. Usually, autists are doomed to live in institutes. Careful specialists say that 98% of autists never cure of it. But there exists an approach which has unbelievable results, although specialists are sceptic about it.

Common Cure
Most specialists work with autists with exactly structured program, which divides all activities of autist into small and precise steps during the day. It is behavioral method TEACCH which helps autists to learn some skills. However, this method doesn't cure autism. On the basis of reward system, it redirects inappropriate behaviors to other ones, more acceptable. With help of this method, children are capable (if successful) to learn basic self-service: to wash themselves, to eat, to dress up. Some are even successful in communication of various degree.

Son-Rise
On the other hand, there is a method which is able to fully bring a lot of autists from their world to ours. Specialists are usually sceptic about it. See Son-Rise for more details.