Does Your Baby Have Autism?
Detecting the Earliest Signs of Autism
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
For many years, the diagnosis of autism has centered on a child’s social interaction--from poor eye contact to lack of language skills. Although the autism community agrees that early intervention is key to effective treatment, the telltale signs of this disorder usually don’t reveal themselves until the age of two or three. But what if it were possible to detect the potential for autism within the first year of life?
Osnat and Philip Teitelbaum have worked for nearly two decades to establish ways of detecting signs of potential autism or Asperger’s syndrome by examining early motor development. This book first provides general information about the history of autism and The Ladder of Motor Development. Each of four chapters then examines one motor milestone—righting, sitting, crawling, or walking—contrasting typical and atypical development so that it’s easy to recognize unusual patterns of movement.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Husband-and-wife researchers present for the lay reader intriguing results from two decades of close observation and early detection of autism and Asperger's syndrome in babies. Instead of relying on language deficits and socialization to identify these developmental disorders, which has been the traditional approach by doctors, delaying detection and thus treatment to two years and older, this team reasoned from watching videos concerned parents made of their infants that atypical movement patterns signaling autism were apparent within the first year. While a typical baby achieves milestones of righting himself, crawling, sitting and walking through specific movements, the autistic child's ladder of motor development progresses differently, for example, in asymmetrical positions, lagging reflexes or impaired sense of balance. Each chapter defines what is typical and what is problematic, what parents can do to stimulate growth and how to seek help. The authors emphasize the importance of keeping records and offer a Observation Journal for the infant's caregiver, as well as numerous pages of resources. Nonsexist, reasoned if somewhat urgent in tone, this work, which is sure to be controversial, aims to turn the caregiver's intuition into positive, early action.
