Family members, especially her mother-in-law, started ignoring Nilam Gautam after finding out that her three-year-old son had autism.
Nilam bursts into tears when she remembers her son's abnormal behaviour. "I am going through a great difficulty," she says, "because my son -- Dikshan Gautam -- does not act like normal children."
Her ordeal does not end here. Owing to autism, her son has been deprived of education. Time and again, she tried to enroll her child in school. "It will harm our business, so we can't admit your son," she quotes teachers.
On the other hand, Darshan Deuja, whose son also experienced autism, had to quit her job as teacher to look after her son, Darshit.
"I worried about my son's future," she says. She thought her world had turned upside down when she first discovered her son's autism. "It was like a nightmare."
Despite the bitter fact that there is no reliable treatment for autism, not even in developed countries, she never gave up. However, she has started seeing some rays of hope -- Darshit, who is her only son, is slowly doing worldly things. She is determined, "I will stop giving birth to other children" and will spend the rest of my life enabling him."
According to doctors, autism is a disability that develops due to abnormal growth of children's brain.
Tanya Savko, executive member of Autism Society of Oregon, while addressing mothers of children with similar problems, said autism is not a tragedy. "We live far away. Our lives, jobs and cultures are very different. But, we have one thing in common -- our children". Savko also has a 14-year-old child who is autistic.
Nikki Scarbrough, Executive Director of Knowledge for people said, "There is no medicine for curing autism, neither is there any particular reason behind the case". She added, "The important thing is that family members should be involved in looking after the autistic child with lots of love and care".
Autism is mainly characterised in three ways: Problems in communicating, interacting socially, and it is repetitive in its motions. Autistic persons are either very hyper or very passive. They do not like to play games like normal children. They don't like change and avoid eye contact. They echo words or phrases and can't understand danger or have no fear.
Dr. Sunita Amatya, Vice President of Autism Care Nepal (ACN) outlined the possibility of danger for autistic children because they don't understand danger. "It might result in a huge accident".
President of ACN Hem Sagar Baral suggested that family members should not hide autism in the family due to fear of social stigma. They should own the problem and try to provide treatment for those children. In this connection, he also called on the department concerned to look into the issue.
Posted on: 2009-07-25 20:50:11
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