Emerging in early childhood; Autism, which causes delays, limitations and repetitive movements in social interaction and communication skills, prevents empathy with normal people. Experts state that children with autism have difficulty in making sense of emotions, and point out that these individuals can learn emotions under the guidance of a person.
They cannot empathize
These emotions are happiness, sadness, disgust and trust. Over time, children develop the ability to understand and express emotions. It turns into 80 types of emotions and their degrees, such as shame, jealousy, joy, fear and other emotions. Improvement in emotions is linked to empathy ability. Autistic children have an empathy disorder. They have difficulty making sense of emotions. We call this contextual blindness. Therefore, they should learn emotions under the guidance of a person.
Crowd and noise trigger nervous breakdown
We can call this an abnormal stress response. Forcing to answer a difficult question, forcing eye contact, crowds, noise, too much light, social expectations, the need for sleep or food may trigger such situations. If stress instability is high enough, it causes the child to shut down and damages the child's brain. The family should know how to calm the child in this situation. In addition, the behavioral pattern that causes the crisis should be identified and the child should be helped to overcome this fear. If they have special toys and objects that provide a sense of security and psychological balance, or if they have favorite behaviors such as swinging, driving around, listening to the sound of the vacuum cleaner, they should be offered to them.
They do not like to be touched
They do not like hugging and touching. We can say that they experience touch difficulties and behavioral problems because of this sensitivity, but we do not generalize this to all individuals with autism. Unauthorized contact is something that should not normally happen, but it is easy for them to learn the difference between intentional and unintentional behavior. While light touch seems more unpleasant than deep touch in some individuals with the autism spectrum form, in others, unexpected touch can be disturbing, even if it comes from a loved one. At the same time, from distant acquaintances and Touching behavior from strangers is not perceived as safe.
Feelings such as love are mysterious to them
Individuals on the autism spectrum try to categorize love as an object. They may see it as something necessary to acquire. Because they are contextually blind and do not know how to show love, they love in their own way. Many individuals with autism can live as married adults with children. Just because they are autistic, it is not possible for their children to have autism as well. The spouse of someone with autism should think about the way they communicate and take responsibility for helping them manage money, find a job, and defend themselves.
If helped, they can learn to love
The love of the other party. Just as they cannot perceive it, they cannot understand its pain. They are mostly self-focused thinkers and it is not possible to see any signs of love in individuals with severe autism. We see that individuals with mild autism learn to love if they are helped. Types of love can be taught with the support of observation and art therapy, provided that it does not create excessive stress. Elaborating on emotions with context sensitivity helps. Companionship, affection, passion and their expressions on the face should be taught. Nonverbal communication skills, gestures and facial expressions are also issues that need to be studied.
Individuals with autism also have sexual lives
It is possible to say that individuals with autism also have sexual lives, but they do not want to see the world from others. They experience it differently. This makes it difficult to validate or express emotional understanding because they have difficulty making eye contact. However, they may experience different body movements, shaking, clapping, attachment to objects, resistance to changes, difficulty in touching, and sensitivity in sensory perception.
Children with autism can also learn humor.
Although they cannot understand, they can learn over time. Since basic language skills are not fully developed, they look for clouds around the head in the expression "my head touched the clouds". They do not make eye contact and do not use gestures and facial expressions. When they start making eye contact, their communication skills also improve. Even if you look lovingly at a 6-year-old child with autism, fear may still arise. and you may encounter anger and the reaction "don't look at me like that", or you may see him react to a loving expression by covering his ears. Emotional reactions that are few in childhood and adolescence may not be fully developed even in adulthood. They don't tend to show interesting things to other people. We call this tendency not to respond to interesting things that others show them as social or joint attention. Joint attention is difficult to develop.
Fighting against autism requires dedication
An enriched education and living environment needs to be provided throughout their lives. It should not be forgotten that nothing taught is wasted. The fact that the society supports the family and does not leave it alone provides different perspectives within the framework of truth, loyalty and friendship.
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