Autism Spectrum Disorder
Getting a child is everyone’s dream in marriage, but it’s natural for any parent to desire to
give birth to a bouncing baby, without any defects. The diagnosis of a child with birth defects
or mental disorders becomes a major blow eliciting fear and confusion into how one will take
care of such a child. For some, it may turn the end of the happy moment an ushering in of a
whole new beginning of challenges and trounces. Traditionally, such incidences were
associated with negativities, including curses, witchcraft or enchantments. this prompted
parents of babies with abnormalities to flee their homes and community in fear of
persecution. Others preferred abortion after discovering that their fetus had defects. However,
today, this stereotype is on the decline, and hence the acceptability of disability. More so
some problems, like mental disorders including autism cannot be discovered during
pregnancy. We discovered that Tash (pseudonym for my grandchild) had Autism Spectrum
disorder several months after birth.
Tash demonstrated normal physical growth, but we discovered that her mental development
(including cognition, language development, emotional dysregulation and attention deficit,
etc.), social interaction, communication and general behavior showed anomalies. Normally, a
child as young as 9 months can respond when their name is called, sustain an eye contact
with a care giver during play, smile when smiled to (especially when with their mother), may
crawl and become playful, utter some words, recognize their mother or care givers, among
others. However, a majority of these were missing from Tash. She heard some signs of
sociability issues, as evident from her limited sustenance of eye contact, repetitive
movements and fidgetiness, including like flapping of hands, body rocking and finger
flicking, not making any clear words and repetitive unclear words.
Although we wished and thought that these issues could gradually dwindle, the problem
continued and became more pronounced with time. By the age of three, Tash demonstrated
major communication problems like use of atypical language, difficulties interacting with
people, irritability at the slightest provocation (e.g. denial of a toy or absence of her nanny),
extreme passion on things that made her happy (e.g. a cartoon on TV), inability to express
herself, difficulties in selfcare e.g. using the toilet, social withdrawal, upsets with change of
routine among other problems.
Being the first child, Regan (my son) went into denial probably because of the optimism and
wide anticipations that appeared shun, privy to the second and confirmatory diagnosis of his
Getting a child is everyone’s dream in marriage, but it’s natural for any parent to desire to
give birth to a bouncing baby, without any defects. The diagnosis of a child with birth defects
or mental disorders becomes a major blow eliciting fear and confusion into how one will take
care of such a child. For some, it may turn the end of the happy moment an ushering in of a
whole new beginning of challenges and trounces. Traditionally, such incidences were
associated with negativities, including curses, witchcraft or enchantments. this prompted
parents of babies with abnormalities to flee their homes and community in fear of
persecution. Others preferred abortion after discovering that their fetus had defects. However,
today, this stereotype is on the decline, and hence the acceptability of disability. More so
some problems, like mental disorders including autism cannot be discovered during
pregnancy. We discovered that Tash (pseudonym for my grandchild) had Autism Spectrum
disorder several months after birth.
Tash demonstrated normal physical growth, but we discovered that her mental development
(including cognition, language development, emotional dysregulation and attention deficit,
etc.), social interaction, communication and general behavior showed anomalies. Normally, a
child as young as 9 months can respond when their name is called, sustain an eye contact
with a care giver during play, smile when smiled to (especially when with their mother), may
crawl and become playful, utter some words, recognize their mother or care givers, among
others. However, a majority of these were missing from Tash. She heard some signs of
sociability issues, as evident from her limited sustenance of eye contact, repetitive
movements and fidgetiness, including like flapping of hands, body rocking and finger
flicking, not making any clear words and repetitive unclear words.
Although we wished and thought that these issues could gradually dwindle, the problem
continued and became more pronounced with time. By the age of three, Tash demonstrated
major communication problems like use of atypical language, difficulties interacting with
people, irritability at the slightest provocation (e.g. denial of a toy or absence of her nanny),
extreme passion on things that made her happy (e.g. a cartoon on TV), inability to express
herself, difficulties in selfcare e.g. using the toilet, social withdrawal, upsets with change of
routine among other problems.
Being the first child, Regan (my son) went into denial probably because of the optimism and
wide anticipations that appeared shun, privy to the second and confirmatory diagnosis of his
