He would scream for hours on end, staying awake each night for three to five hours, in clear discomfort. And he is beginning to talk again. But the road from there to here has not been an easy one. It was filled with trial and error. Parents' love and devotion, and a father trained in traditional nutrition sciences and psychiatry, who was able to keep an open mind, apparently made a difference.
Autism is a difficult disorder, with bizarre traits.
Classified as a developmental disability, it is a neurological disorder that interferes with normal development of the brain in areas of reasoning, social interaction and communication. With a typical onset in the first three years of life, autism can cause children to become so withdrawn from the real world that they will sit and rock for hours on end in one position. They may develop repeated body movements such as hand flapping, they may be highly resistant to change, and in the most dramatic cases, they may become overly aggressive to others - and to themselves. They may repeatedly bang their heads against a wait, for example. The Autism Society of America estimates about 400,000 people nationwide have autism to some degree.