 Today I want to talk to you about autism. April 2nd is recognized all over the world as Autism Awareness Day. So let's discuss what is autism? Autism is a condition that is mainly brain-based and developmental disorder which affects children in the way they relate to the world and relate to people around them, in the way they communicate with people, in the way they engage with their environment, how they play, how they interact with the children of their age, in the way they have their interests and behaviors. What is the early science of autism? The science of autism can be very many but the most common symptom that people recognize is speech delay. Typically these symptoms appear between the ages of 12 months and 24 months. Parents first notice that the child is not making high contact with them, is not responding to their name call, is not making some babbling sounds, not saying mama, papa, papa, which they expect between 8 to 9 months at least. Even at 12 months these children are not making babbling sounds, they don't respond to simple commands and instructions, they don't use words to request or they don't use gestures to show pointing like this with the index finger to show I want this, I want to go there, give me this and so on. They don't develop meaningful words by 16 months, they don't develop a good vocabulary, a variety of words by the age of 2 years and no 2 word phrases by 2 years and sometimes they may show different types of play behaviors which are somewhat different or unusual when compared to typically developing children. For example, instead of playing with cars they prefer to arrange the cars in a line, they may prefer to spin the wheels of the car instead of playing with the whole car, they may prefer to spin by themselves, they like to play by themselves instead of playing with or interacting with others. These are some of the red flag signs that should alert parents that something could be a little different with their children and should alert them and prompt them to talk to their pediatrician. So what can parents do when they suspect and they become concerned? I would definitely urge parents not to wait and see to try to talk to their pediatrician as soon as they become concerned and sometimes they can also use screening tools like mchat which is called modified checklist for autism and toddlers which is widely available and this screening tool should be administered at the time of 18 months and again at 24 months so that we know all the children who are at risk or identified at the earliest. The earlier a child is recognized and started on intervention the better it is for the child's outcome. So every child with autism is not the same, each child has different needs and different requirements so but one thing common to all children is they do need a variety of therapies. The therapies are usually speech therapy, occupational therapy and sometimes some children may need other therapies also but intervention has to be a team effort. A team effort means that a parent is part of the team who is helping the child, speech therapist in the team, voteist in the team, there is a developmental pediatrician in the team. So regular follow up with the developmental pediatrician reassessments to understand what the child's current needs are, how the child is developing in various aspects of his development, how his speech is developing, his self-help skills are coming, his social skills are improving, how is fitting in into the school and the classroom, all these things need regular reviews. So I hope the small informative session is useful to you. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out to us.