How To Help People With Autism and ADHD Manage the Disease Successfully

What is Autism?
Autism is also known as autism spectrum disorder, and it is a range of conditions that are characterized by challenges with speech, non-verbal communication, social skills, behaviors, and unique differences and strengths. The most visible signs of the disease tend to appear when a child is between two and three years of age, but in some cases, the diagnosis can happen when the young one is about eighteen months. Although it mainly affects children, teens with autism can become adults who have the illness.
What is ADHD?
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is one of the most commonly diagnosed mental conditions in children. It affects kids and teens, and at times can continue to adulthood. The disease causes the people who have it to be hyperactive and not able to control impulses. Other people may also find it difficult to pay attention. These behaviors interfere with home, work, and school life. Just like autism, it is more common in males than in females. Doctors discover it in the early years when children in schools have issues with paying attention.

How the Diseases Affect People
Although autism and ADHD are separate diseases with different symptoms, there are some common ways to which they affect the people with diseases whether they are young or old. Individuals with the conditions may:
• Be easily distracted
• Find it difficult to follow instructions or finish tasks
• Make careless mistakes or not pay attention
• Forget about tasks they need to do on a daily basis
• Not appear as though they are listening (they day dream a lot)
• Not like doing things that require them to sit still
• Talk excessively
• Be always on the move climbing or running around (restlessness)
• Be impulsive where they have challenges waiting for their turn, interrupt others, or blurt out answers
• Tend to lose things easily
• Experience chronic boredom
• Experience low self-esteem
• Have Mood swings
• Have relationship and work problems
• Easily frustrated
• Have trouble controlling anger
• Resort to substance addiction or abuse
• Suffer from depression among many others

How to Help People With The Diseases

If you suspect that an individual either has ADHD or autism, it is important that you take them to a doctor for the precise diagnosis. It helps to know the steps to take to move forward. It is quite unfortunate that there is still no cure for the diseases. However, it is possible to manage it successfully using various methodologies like: 

Medication

You can use different types of medicine to treat the disease including the use of stimulants, non-stimulants, and antidepressants. Always get prescriptions from a professional doctor to ensure that the patient is taking the right drugs and dosage.

Behavioural Therapy

Therapy tries to change behavior patterns of the adults or children who have the diseases by giving clear commands and direction, setting up a system of rewards for appropriate behavior and consequences for ‘bad’ actions and reorganizing home, work, and school environments. Strategies you can use here include

• Developing a routine- attempt to have the same schedule every single day from the time a person wakes up all the way to when they retire to bed. This way, they will always know what to do. 

• Limit choices- offer a choice between one thing or another so that the patient does not become overstimulated or overwhelmed. 

• Avoid distractions- when a person is doing something serious such as homework or office work switch off the TV, computers, cell phones, or radios so that they are not tempted to start doing something else before they finish the task at hand. 

• Change interactions with the individuals- rather than nagging or using long- winded explanations, you are better off using brief and definite instructions to remind the people of their responsibilities. 

• Use rewards and goals- use a chart to list goals and track positive behavior. If a person does the right thing, pay them accordingly. Set realistic goals to avoid frustrations. 

• Toy and hand spinners- experts claim that the products can help people with the deficits because they assist hyper individuals to focus on what they are doing.