AUTISM EPIDEMIC IN INDIA

Autism is a severe neurobiological disorder, often life-long and children affected suffer from communication impairments, language impairments, poor socialskills,repetitive and obsessive behaviors and often engage inappropriate behaviors such as aggression and self injurious behaviors. It is a spectrum disorder which implies that the degree of severity of the problems vary in different areas and from child to child. The prevalence of autism in the United States, where it is studied systematically, is reported to be 1 in 58 by the Center for Disease control in 2014 up from 1 in 150 in 2009.In India, prevalence estimates vary with a few small studies available.They place the prevalence between 1 in1111 and 1 in 429.This translates to 21.61akhs persons affected or if the international level of 1 in 58 is accepted, it translates to more than 1 crore children affected. It is thus a serious problem nationally and we need concerted and coordinated action from private.non-governmental and governmental organizations to tackle the problem on a war footing. Some of the imperativesandpossibilities for collaboration with BMIFare suggested below:

1. National Polley - National policy should clearly advocate early screening, early diagnosis and early evidence-based interventions for persons affected by autism. The national policy should also ensure stringent monitoring of quack treatments that canbeharmfulor dangerous.BMI Foundation with extensive technical experience can help evolve national policy guidelines and standards to serve this vulnerable population.

2. Early Screening - Early intensive intervention is the key to teach skills to children Across the country, there is an urgent need to screen children at 12 months and if possible cover all born in the last 20 years using proven models to screen using tools adapted to Indian conditions and identify all the affected children and create a data base.BMIF can collaborate with state governments and their grass roots team of health workers to carry out such screening. BMIF can also suggest the best and cost effective methodologies toachieve this nation wide.

3. Early Diagnosis - Those identified by preliminary screening need to be assessed by a multidisciplinary team of experts from each local district and a diagnosis of ASD confirmed where required. BMIF can collaborate with multi disciplinary experts nationally to recommend and arrange for the most suitable diagnostic mechanisms adaptedto Indianconditions.

4. Early Intervention - Early, science -based interventions, based on thousands of scientific studies with proven effectiveness,can remedy many core deficits in children with autism and promote a truly inclusive world for them.BMIF with extensive experience in running intervention centers based on the science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) can help create skilled manpower across the country to reach the services toall childrenand families affected by autism in line with themotto that nochild is left behind.

In summary, there is a crying need to wake up to the magnitude of the epidemic, develop a strong national policy and at state, district and village levels develop mechanisms and trained man power to ensure early screening, diagnosis and intervention to better the lives of children and families with autism who need unstintingsupport from the rest of the society and the government.