Autism a serious condition addressed at FERH
Gauteng only has three public hospitals which deal with autism and the Far East Rand Hospital is one of these hospitals.
April is Autism month and in Ekurhuleni there’s only one public hospital which offers services dealing with thed diagnosis and treatment of Autism which is the Far East Rand Hospital (FERH).
The Springs Advertiser spoke to clinical psychologists based at the hospital about the disorder.
Clinical psychologist and head of the department (HOD) of FERH psychology department, Darren Atmore says: “Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder a child is born with; it is not acquired through parenting or anything like that.
“It is genetic.
“It is a collection of symptoms that a child is born with (social communication difficulties, obsessiveness and language difficulties).”
“In order for a child to be fully diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) they have to have all three symptoms.
“Technically we can diagnose from infancy through to 99 years, but over here we take it from the age of three or four years, the reason being we would rather have a child presented of a delayed speech before we get involved.”
Lucky Tshikovhele, the assistant head of the department (HOD) of the Psychology department, says: “There are tests to check language, intellectual and emotional difficulties in order to diagnose someone with either Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or ASD, and people often confuse the two.”
Atmore says there are different disorders such as learning difficulties which fall more under cognitive difficulties and ADHD and ASD are neurodevelopmental, so one can be born with all three (cognitive, ADHD and ASD) but they are completely separate conditions.
Tshikovhele says: “We work closely with social workers so that we are able to offer support to parents of children living with the condition.”
Atmore says Gauteng has three public hospitals which deal with autism, and the Far East Hospital is one such hospital.
He wishes that the government can have more neurodevelopment clinics to make things easier for parents since dealing with a child with autism is not easy.
“I wish people can be educated on what is autism is, and we do take walk-ins, however, we would sometimes refer people back to our out-patients department so that they get to see a doctor first,” says Atmore
