Ahmad Reza Khatounabadi, dean of Department of Speech Therapy at the TUMS’ School of Rehabilitation, said his department has signed an agreement with India’s Communication DEALL research centre to inaugurate the first international centre for the treatment of autism in Iran.
Pointing to an upward trend in the autism cases in Iran, he said the centre is going to offer training programs as well as expert clinical and therapeutic services with the help of local scientists, in cooperation with researchers from other countries.
Khatounabadi also highlighted the very high costs of cure for autism, calling for support from the administration.
Autism was first described by Dr. Leo Kanner in 1943. Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of developmental disabilities that can cause significant social, communication and behavioural challenges.
The symptoms and characteristics of autism can present themselves in a wide variety of combinations. People with autism process and respond to information in unique ways. In some cases, aggressive or self-injurious behaviour may be present. Persons with autism may also exhibit some traits like insistence on sameness, resistance to change, difficulty in expressing needs, using gestures or pointing instead of words, repeating words or phrases in place of normal, responsive language and laughing, crying, and showing distress for reasons not apparent to others.
