Autism spectrum disorder is one of the most common syndromes around the world. Currently, many organizations and centers are specialized in teaching social skills to children and adults. There is no accredited certification or social skills therapist. Becoming social skills practitioners demand a variety of training and extending your knowledge about social skills therapy.
Social skills groups are created to improve communication and interaction skills for autistic patients in a supportive environment. The effective social skills group must achieve improvement in members' personalities by Turning abstract social ideas into concrete actions, encouraging teamwork, providing opportunities to apply the learned skills in real life, and promoting
self-confidence and self-esteem. In theory, social skills therapy will enhance the ability of autistic to play, interact and study with their peers. In an ideal world, social therapy will help people with autism to be nearly indistinguishable from their peers. In fact, social skills therapy is only given no more than a couple hours per week, learning patient-specific techniques for instance, ( you should use eye contact while you are talking with others or smile to strangers in the street ) it is unlikely that techniques will help autistic people to be typical. Social skills therapy is most likely to have a great impact and improvements in people with autism If it is offered more than twice per week. (L JO RUDY.N.D).
(Antshel et al., 2011) Until recently, there has been no reliable evidence that social skills therapy may help autistic children and adults to interact or improve a range of social skills. So far, there is a lack of studies that approve that social skills therapy has benefits for adults. It can be more effective for children and teenagers who wish to socialize, improve their skills and whose level of anxiety and attitudes can be controlled in situations that involve different people at once.
More than half of autistic children take medicine in their childhood, so deciding to treat a child with autism with medicine is a difficult decision for most families.
The first drug that is approved and most commonly used for children with autism is risperidone (Schreibman et al., 2015).
It helps to improve some children's behavior, unfortunately, risperidone can have many side effects. Risperidone can effectively treat the aggressive behaviors that accompany autism. (E Anthes. 2014) A recent study by Lawrence Scahill professor of pediatrics at the Marcus Autism Center at Emory University in Atlanta, who has performed risperidone clinical trials, showed that risperidone has really massive effects on tantrums, violence, and self-injury. However, risperidone has significant side effects and limitations. Not all patients respond to risperidone, autism symptoms often recur when the drug is discontinued and many of the core behaviors associated with autism are not improved. In other words, risperidone is not a treatment or a cure for autism also it does not limit or core autism's symptoms. Risperidone has significant side effects such as gaining weight due to increased appetite. Children who take risperidone gain around 6 pounds within eight weeks of taking the medicine. Additionally, risperidone can cause drowsiness, some hormonal changes, and in a few cases involuntary movements.
In addition, risperidone is the reason for fatigue and sleepiness. Shafali Jeste and her colleagues studied the medical records of 70 children with risperidone-treated autism in 2011. They found in the records that drowsiness is less often unlike gain weight, but the former is often the main reason for choosing families to take children off the medicine. (E Anthes, 2014)
The only other medicine that is approved to treat autistic with irritability is Aripiprazole, also aripiprazole has side effects. FDA approved that aripiprazole is an irritability treatment for autistic children and adolescents. A 2009 study published in pediatrics showed that in a group of 98 autistic children, 52% are taking Aripiprazole in abilify form and 14% are taking a placebo The study showed that irritability symptoms reduced to 25% in children who are taking aripiprazole compared to 14% of the children who are taking placebo (Aman et al., 2010).
Not all people respond to these medications and all these drugs have side effects. Each patient has a different response to these medicines. Furthermore, the patient may face different responses even if the patient did not change the medicine. In some cases autistic develop tolerance (when the medicine is not effective anymore) or sensitization (when the drug's side effects become worse).
In the final analysis, researchers agree that doctors should be careful when they give the patient risperidone, also risperidone should be given to autistic children who suffer from serious symptoms or after they tried other treatments and it failed.