Guest speaker Dianna Varady addressed a group of National Park College students on campus Tuesday about Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, in conjunction with Autism Awareness Month.
After her son received a diagnosis of ASD, Varady dedicated herself to learning and raising awareness about the condition.
She is now head of the Arkansas Autism Resource and Outreach Center in Little Rock and has also worked with Partners for Inclusive Communities at the College of Education at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
"Part of my job as a parent and an advocate is to teach my kid the skills he's going to need to be an adult. But the other part of my job is to teach others how to support people with disabilities, including autism, in the real world. Getting to people when they're in college, before they're out there in the community, that means my son has a better chance at getting a job and having neighbors who support him and welcome him and include him in the community," Varady said.
She defined ASD as a "complex neurodevelopmental disorder that is predominantly genetic in origin and manifests in impairments in social, communicative and behavioral development, differences in cognitive functioning, attention, and sensory processing," in her slideshow.
Varady said ASD includes autistic disorder, also known as "classic autism," Asperger syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, or PDD-NOS, also known as atypical autism.
These were previously three distinct diagnoses, but are now all considered to be under the umbrella of ASD.
"What we do now is diagnose autism spectrum disorder, and at that moment in time, the diagnostic team will designate a level one, two, or three, depending on the need of support at the time," said Varady.
She stressed that each person and case of ASD looks and manifests differently, and presents different challenges and strengths to each person.
"Everybody with autism is different, just like everybody in this room is different."
Varady also emphasized that despite what might be written online or in the media, autism is not a psychiatric condition or a compliance disorder.
"It affects the way that the brain develops during infancy and early on in the womb and then throughout childhood," she said.
Citing information released from the U.S. Department of Education, the number of individuals receiving services for ASD has increased dramatically in the last decade, according to Varady.
She mostly credits this with better detection methods rather than an actual increase of the prevalence of the disorders, but says it is a hotly debated topic among many professionals in the field.
According to a CDC study released in 2007 that was shared by Varady, one in 150 children born in the U.S. would be diagnosed with autism.
Another report released in 2014 stated that this number had risen to one in 68 nationwide.
"We used to think autism is rare. It is not. It's actually very common, and we probably all grew up with people who had autism," Varady said.
She also cited a 2010 study in Arkansas that showed, statewide, one in 65 children would be diagnosed.
The data was broken down into one in 40 boys being diagnosed versus one in 172 girls. The study also showed one in 57 Caucasian, one in 91 African-American, one in 110 Hispanic, and one in 87 Asian/Pacific Islander children being diagnosed in 2010.
"We do not do a very good job identifying children who have autism from these minority populations. There's no reason why you should see this disproportionality among Caucasian children. What that tells us is we're not identifying children from those minority populations and that we need to do a better job," Varady said.
The average age at the time of these diagnoses was five years and one month.
Forty-six percent of the children identified had an average or above average IQ score, meaning greater than 85.
According to Varady, ASD is the most common serious developmental disability in the country, being more common than childhood diabetes, cancer, and AIDS combined, with a new diagnosis every 11 minutes.
To help her audience understand and recognize individuals with ASD, Varady cited many signs and symptoms of ASD.
These include behaviors or rituals that might seem odd to others; collecting curious items; obsessive or compulsive behaviors; intense preference in clothing, food, sounds and more; hypersensitivity to touch, sounds, visual stimuli; using senses in unusual manner such as smelling, licking, or touching in inappropriate situations; unusual body postures or movements especially when upset or under stress; avoiding eye contact; difficulty reading the mood or feelings of others; not understanding obvious, basic social rules; difficulty in turn-taking interactions; difficulty making friends; difficulty initiating interactions; interpreting language very literally; sounding "robot-like;" reversing pronouns; "parroting" or echolalia; use of scripted language; difficulty talking about things outside the immediate situation; not using natural gestures to communicate; making and following rigid rules; not processing verbal information well; learning from specific-to-general; liking routine; and needing longer to process information.
Varady said there is usually nothing wrong with allowing people to perform these rituals and actions unless the behavior is disruptive, causing issues, or a source of ridicule. If so, finding a behavior that replaces and mimics the effect that the original ritual or behavior provided can be effective.
"The best way for you to understand what autism is and to get rid of those myths and stereotypes is to get to know people who have autism. Not only do you gain a great friend, but you learn a lot. Disability is just part of life. If you live long enough, chances are you will have a disability. So if we make this world accepting and welcoming to people with disabilities it doesn't just help them. It helps all of us," she said.
Varady was invited to speak by NPC senior Virginia Pitts as part of her capstone project.
"I couldn't have found a better person in the state probably to educate us about this," said Pitts.
NPC faculty member Darlene Gentles shared that she hopes to invite Varady to return and speak for a longer period of time and elaborate on how staff, faculty, and students can support individuals with ASD.
Local on 04/24/2019