I am not an autistic parent but I did for a period work with autistic people at a special school and looking after them is a frustrating occupation. But there is no known effective cure for it. Autism and the related Asperger's syndrome are rare, affecting only about 5 children in every 10,000 and about three times as many boys as girls. Autism is by definition evident in a child before the age of 30 months, characterised as they get older by subtle abnormalities of social interaction, pre-occupation with special interests like UFOs or prehistoric monsters and most commonly by particular weird idiosyncrasies and personality abnormalities.

It may be helpful first to explain how autistic children differ. Often autistic children appear normal for the first few months of their life before becoming unresponsive to parents or other stimuli. The first sign the parents may observe is an inability to fix on mother's face. Resistance to being cuddled may cause the child to scream to be put down whenever picked up. The child remains aloof from parents and other people and fails to form relationships.

He (or she) avoids eye to eye contacts has a preference for playing by himself and is often indifferent to the feelings of others and to accepted social conventions, and extreme resistance to change of any kind is an important symptom, such as reacting with severe tantrums to alterations in routine or interference with his activities. Rituals develop in his play and he may become attacxhed to unusual objects or collections.

This wish for sterile sameness can make it very hard to teach the autistic child new skills. The autistic child lacks the ability to understand or copy speech or gestures and responds to sounds very inappropriately and because of this delay in speaking is very common, and even when speech is acquiredit tends to be immature and has a robot like sound. He may have other weird behavioural abnormalities like walking on tip toes, or constantly throwing a ball at a wall and catching it, or twiddling or flicking his fingers for hours at a time, rocking, self injury, sudden screaming and hyperactivity. But despite these weird traits his appearance and muscular coordination are normal and some autistic children have isolated masterly skill such as phenomenal rote memory or virtuoso musical prodigy.

So that is why parents of autistic children really need support and proper counselling, and autistic children need special schooling. Therapies and behavioural intervention can be helpful in remedying specific symptoms and may bring about substantial improvement. The best treatment plan links therapies and interventions that accommodate the specific needs of the individual child and the earlier the intervention, the better.

For educational and behavioural intervention professionals rely on intensive skill-oriented training sessions like applied behavioural analysis to help autistic children develop their language and social communication, all rather beyond the area of expertise normal parents. Family counseling for the parents and siblings of autistic children can often help the families cope better with the particular challenges of living with an autistic.

Doctors do prescribe medications appropriate to treat specific autism-related symptoms, like depression, anxiety,or obsessive compulsive disorder. These may be anti psychotic medications to treat severe behavioral problems. Seizures may be treated with one or more anti-convulsion drugs For treating children with attention deficit disorder medication can be prescribed to help decrease impulsivity and hyperactivity. Although dietary interventions have proved helpful in treating some children, parents are advised to be careful that their child’s nutritional status is correctly pursued.

I am a Special Education Resource Aide and I work with autistic children daily. Here are some of the methods used to relieve their anxiety:

Autistic kids like rules and routines. The more they know what to expect each day, the easier it is for them.

When schedules need to be changed, it helps to explain to the autistic child what is happening. Then, an adult should walk them through it the first time ... or even longer if it is a major change, such as a new school.

Autistic kids like to be around familiar people. It also helps them with their social anxiety to have one or two friends with a shared interest who are also autistic. They might share an interest in anime, computers, chess or other activities. Autistic kids will always have social anxiety around new people. However, having a friend like themselves makes a huge difference and brings them comfort. We try to help them make friends at our school, and many have remained friends into adulthood.

Autistic kids often like to dress the same, or almost the same, every day. They may have a favorite coat or scarf they always wear.

Certain medications such as anti-anxiety drugs or anti-depressants may
also help; however, they are not a cure for autism. They may simply decrease the severity of their reactions to situations that make them anxious.