Autism

I feel that in our workplace there is a lack of autism training. While most of the staff know something about autism they don’t necessarily understand how autism affects the service users. Autism affects the normal development of the brain in the area of social interaction and communication skills. Children and adults with autism have difficulties in verbal and non verbal communication, social interactions and leisure and play activities. Aggressive and / or self injurious behaviour may be present in some cases. This makes it difficult for us to recognise the autistic traits our service users have, many of our service users have a lack of awareness for other peoples’ feelings and the way other people think. Some of the staff find it difficult to recognise the autistic traits and finds it harder for them to communicate appropriately with the service users and it also means they may not know how to adapt their own behaviour and mannerisms to support the service user. Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them. A lack of understanding of autism can lead to a variety of problems i.e. aggressive behaviour. They can often get frustrated when they can’t do something, but they may not understand that other people can help, so they don’t ask for it. Instead they might cry out or throw things to show that they are frustrated. They also often lack empathy, so they have little understanding of their own mental state and that of others. They don’t understand how their behaviour affects other people. Some people with autism develop anxiety disorders i.e. anxiety or panic attacks   or obsessive compulsory disorders because they cant cope with stress , so it is important that we as staff can recognise these symptoms of stress.
Some people with autism are able to live relatively normal lives and be independent but others may have accompanying...