Readers Write: Symptoms of autism begin at birth

The Island Now

This is in response to an article written on March 7, 2014 by Arturo Bravermann, who believes that administration of vaccines is one of the major causes of autism and other neurologic impairments in children.

As a practicing pediatrician of forty years, I have observed that symptoms of autism start at birth.  

By following autistic  children very closely over the time, one will notice major developmental delays or lack of social response in these children. The following is a brief synopsis of the major developmental milestones of a normal infant during the first year of life: To begin, it has been shown that healthy newborns will recognize their parents in their first few weeks of life. 

At about four weeks, the baby will visually follow objects. At about two month, he or she will smile with social contact; listen to voices, and coos.  At three months the baby listens to music, and a month later the baby can laugh out loud, and show emotion at the sight of food, etc.  

Home videos of autistic children have shown that there is a major delay or lack of the above developmental milestones, specifically in reference to eye contact.

To respond to the reason why diagnoses of autism are mostly confirmed after the age of one year, I can only offer my own professional opinion.  

I personally think that when physicians suspect such a case, they are not courageous enough to directly relate such a diagnosis to the parents, instead advise the parents for confirmation of the diagnosis to take their child to a developmental pediatrician.  By the time the final diagnosis is confirmed, the child is already over one year of age.

In my practice, I have followed multiple autistic children. I have found that if the diagnosis of autism is made at an early age (less than one year of age), there is a good chance that by early intervention the child can make a lot of improvement in his or her life and might even function at a normal level.  

Fortunately, since the establishment of the Early Intervention Program or “EIP” for infants and toddlers with disabilities, the time between referral and confirmation of diagnosis by child developmental specialists has shrunk to just a few weeks.   

Parents even have the opportunity to directly call (24 Hours Hotline 1800-522-5006) to rid themselves of their worries, if they might suspect some developmental delay in their newborn or infant.

Lastly, I hope to put to rest the relation between vaccination and developmentally autistic behavior:

In 1998, a British medical journal called “Lancet” published a letter by Dr. Andrew Wakefield who claimed that MMR vaccination was a major cause of autism and some other neurological disorders in children.  

However, following this claim, several studies from reputable medical centers around the world were not able to reach the same conclusion about the relation between MMR vaccines and autism. As no further evidence was provided on the basis of Dr. Wakefield’s claim, an investigation by the British medical journal was conducted and later found that Andrew Wakefield had deliberately mislead the public by falsifying his data and his claim was seen as one of the greatest hoaxes in the medical field.

 In February 2010, he was discredited and stripped of his medical license and it was subsequently found that he had received a large sum of money from a law firm who intended to sue vaccine manufacturers based on his faulty evidence.

Dr. Michael Khadavi

Pediatrician

Great Neck

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