A symbolic action. Prime Minister François Fillon awarded the label of Great National Cause 2012 to the collective of associations “Together for Autism”, which represents more than 100,000 families. Objective: to raise awareness and work towards better management of autism. The government is also showing its willingness to fight the prejudices associated with autism, according to the Prime Minister’s office. >> To read also: True-false on autism
Disease little known to the general public, autism is defined by the WHO as a “severe and early pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) which affects brain functions”, recalls the association France autism on his site. Within PDDs, we find infantile autism, atypical autism, Asperger’s syndrome or even Rett’s syndrome. >> >> More info on autism in our file
PDD results in communication difficulties, poor social interactions, and repetitive and stereotypical behaviors. The autistic person “does not manage to decode the messages which reach him […] nor to clearly address their own messages to those around them, ”says the France autism association on its site.
Today autism affects nearly 600,000 people in France. But not all autistic people have the same symptoms, which makes this disease difficult to pinpoint. Main problem: support. The associations denounce an “unsuitable” care with heavy consequences for the patients: “mistreatment”, “delay in diagnosis” linked to a lack of training of hospital staff, “unsuitable psychoanalytic treatments”, underlines the collective Ensemble pour l ‘ autism in a press release. Another striking figure: nearly 80% of children with autism are also out of school.
While the causes of autism remain unclear, a recent American studyhas shown a link between prematurity and autism. Children born prematurely are thus five times more likely than others to have autism, according to the researchers.
