Madrid, 1 Apr (EFE).-one of every 300 children in Spain suffering from autism, according to the latest diagnostic tests by researchers at the University of Salamanca and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III between children 18 to 24 months, to detect early these child development disorders.

These analyses to identify diseases early are being developed in Salamanca and Zamora and already made in Madrid, as he explained to Efe Manuel Posada, the director of the Research Institute for rare diseases of this Center, which boasts a group of autistic spectrum disorders study.

Tomorrow celebrates the world autism awareness day and you will hear many of the problems that have to deal with both persons who suffer, and their families, who have managed to adapt the definition of this disorder in the next print edition of the Real Academia Española.

Will already not be presented as a child syndrome characterized by inability to congenital establish contact verbal and affectionate with people, but as a disorder of development that “affects communication and social interaction, characterized by restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behaviour”.

The causes of autism should be sought in the disorders of brain development and therefore recent studies are influencing the possible changes that suffers the fetus and the embryo, especially in its nervous system, to see the influence they can have on the neurobehavioural problems and autism in particular.

Autism is currently identified with greater precision: the training of professionals for the diagnosis has also improved tests to detect it and there is a greater awareness of social and family.

But a good number of researchers also think that this increase in detected cases can obey “there is probably a real increase”.

The figure is one of every 300, but the frequency of autism you can admit, according to Posada, one of every 200, that in these screening tests are could be “escaping” some cases of so-called “high functioning” Autism, i.e. children who do not have a delay in language and fail to detect some scores that apply in these test

On autism diagnoses are always behavioral, there is no medical evidence that diagnose form explicit these disorders, and the parents are the first to see these ' warning signs ' that can eventually lead to symptoms.

“typically parents realize when compared with other children attend the nursery.” They perceive that it has the same behavior than others because it usually appears a language disorder. They are usually children who are slow to speak, although there are always nuances; “there are autism without the disorder,” says Posada.

What can do suspect more parents that their son is autistic, however, tends to be fixing his gaze: “the child does not look when you give an order, does not state when it wants to ask for a toy, and especially does not respond to his name”.

Addition, is usually put to play alone, does not interact with the rest of the children, the game tends to be repetitive, does not understand symbolic language, the irony, the ulterior motives and has affected what experts call ' joint interaction '.

Joint interaction is the ability to interact among the people when come us external stimuli and simply with a glance or a gesture between us, we know what we are asking.

Children with autism do not have this quality, with that when faced with an external stimulus, people or facts, they don’t know look to his mother or father and with a view to ask by what is happening or what you must do before that he doesn’t understand.

“en – continues the expert – as if you live in the world you are not understanding the language that you speak others; not because you don’t understand the language, but because you don’t understand the things that you are passing each other with a message that is symbolic and you do not you understand, and you stay then isolated”.

Paediatricians and psychologists are an essential part to corroborate these signs of autism suspected, a syndrome which is not cured, but if detected early can evolve with the help of parents, educators and therapy cognitive-behavioural.

“them can be enabled language, because it is not a problem that can not speak, but that lack them a number of mechanisms, and with education and interaction also improves them the mechanism of conduct; can be more autonomous with the help”, according to Posada.

Bethlehem Escudero