Myths about Autism

Myth -

Poor parenting causes autism.

Fact -

The old belief that poor parenting ("refrigerator mom ") causes autism has been proved totally wrong. Parenting skills have nothing to do with autism.

Myth -

Autism is a mental illness.

Fact -

Autism is a neurologically based disorder of development. It is not considered a mental illness.

Myth -

Children with autism can perform amazing mental feats, such as memorizing the whole telephone directory or multiplying large numbers in mind.

Fact -

Autistic children who have such unique skills are called 'savants'. Less than 5% of the autistic children have such abilities. Even for them those skills are useless as they may not have the social skills needed to use them appropriately.

Myth -

Children with autism will never learn to speak.

Fact -

About 50% of children with autism do not speak. With early detection and training it is possible to increase this number. It is also possible to teach them alternative means of communication.

Myth -

Children with autism are all alike in their symptoms.

Fact -

Autism is a spectrum of disorder ranging in severity. The challenges posed by each autistic kid is very different from the other. That makes it very difficult to train them.

Myth -

Children with autism are disobedient kids who intentionally ignore people and instructions.

Fact -

They look like disobedient because of their poor communication and social skills. They also generally have very poor motivation.

Myth -

Children with autism are aggressive and dangerous.

Fact -

Normally they are not aggressive. They have problems processing sensory inputs appropriately. Their hypo or hyper sensitivity to the enviornment (noise, unfamiliar situation etc.) disturbs them and their inability to respond to them appropriately results sometimes in such behaviors.

Myth -

Children with autism are mentally retarded.

Fact -

Only a portion of kids with autism have mental retardation.

Myth -

Autism affects only boys.

Fact -

While the majority of the affected are boys, it can affect the girls as well. The ration is 4:1.

Myth -

The multi-folds raise reported cases of autism is due to better understanding and diagnostics.

Fact -

Better understanding and diagnostics is responsible for only a part of the raise. There still is a large portion of the raise that cannot be accounted for by better diagnostics.

Myth -

Doctors are the best resources on autism.

Fact -

Only a very small percentage of the medical community know autism well. Many doctors know very little about autism and won't be able to diagnose one.