Child Psychiatry


What is autism?

Infantile autism is a complex disease that starts by stopping the psychological development of the child before age 3 and is characterized by:

    • inability to initiate and develop social relationships, to express interest and excitement;
    • inability to use language and communication (both verbal and non-verbal);
    • presence of stereotypical behavior, including a restrictive and repetitive behavioral repertoire.


Early intervention in autism

At the moment, there is no therapy that directly addresses the child with autism.
All therapies are aimed to parents with an autistic child, parents who have to choose one or more therapies for their child.
Therefore early intervention in autism means:

    • helping the parents get rid of the post-traumatic stress disorder (the parents experience a shock when they receive their child’s diagnosis)
    • parents are advised on the autism spectrum disorders
    • the parents will know what each therapy and medication treatment can do for his child, and also the limits of each therapy.
    • the parents will set goals (what they want for their child) and what care plan to fallow in order to achieve the objectives.
    • to start behavioral and medication therapy as soon as possible after diagnosis.

The parent is the “case manager” and the future of his child depends on his decisions.

The autistic child’s family

A child with autism has two pairs of parents: the one until the diagnosis is received (the “normal” family) and another one, after learning the diagnosis.
Once the parents receive the diagnosis and find out autism has no treatment, they fall into a state of shock similar to the state of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
To get out of this state, the parents need a solid foothold. It’s found in a therapy, specialist or in the parent himself.
The child whose parents have the fulcrum in a therapy, will progress slowly because his parents are still in a state of PTSD.
In this case, the parents surround their child only with despair and can not understand the child’s needs. They do not provide proper feedback to the therapeutic team (only “no therapy works for him”).
Being depressed, after finding out the diagnosis (even if there have been months or years since then), the parents expect huge progress in a short time (unrealistic), which is not possible.
The parent who is balanced and takes its point of support in himself, understands the behavior and the emotional needs of his child and provides all the needed information to the therapy team.
These parents understand the indications and limitations of various medication treatments and effective therapies for autism. They will be able to choose the optimum combination for their child and because of that he will have the best development.
To treat the child with autism implies treating their parents’ PTSD.
Children with autism often have normal or above average intelligence. According to the intelligence tests, they seem to have a medium to severe retardation. These results are a consequence of the fact that the child is locked in his world, the information does not reach to him and he does not send information to the world around him.

The mentally disabled child versus the autistic child

The mentally disabled child is “here and now”, pays attention, wants to learn, but does not have the intellectual resources to do so.
Children with autism can learn, but there is no exchange of information between him and the environment. Automatically, having a normal intellectual level and regaining the ability to learn, the cognitive deficit recovery between his biological age and his cognitive and emotional age begins.
The team therapy of children with autism is complex and consists primarily of parents of children with autism, child psychiatrist, coordinator of ABA, ABA tutors, counseling psychologist with experience in the family with an autistic child, psychologist to assess the level of development, speech therapist, physiotherapist and art therapist.