• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurological condition in which the development of the brain is impacted.

  • Brain essentially is a web of neurons. Development of brain refers to essentially to 2 things

    • Number of neurons or density of neurons in the brain, and 

    • The linking between the neurons to transmit and process information.

• In the children's early years, brain develops at an exponential speed. During this period neuron density and neural connections grow tremendously. 

• The fuel powering this neurological growth is the environmental inputs that the child (and his brain) gets.

• Whatever the child see, hear, touch, smell, do, interact with etc provides inputs to the brain that leads to the brain development. 

• When the brain doesn't get enough of this fuel, it's development slows down and this slowness over the period of time becomes visible in terms of delayed language, lesser social interactions, delayed physical growth etc.

• Good thing about Virtual Autism

  • Since Virtual Autism is not genetic and not emerging from any physical condition, it definitely can be reversed. 

  • In order to reverse what essentially we need is to fuel up the brain.

• Bad thing about Virtual Autism

  • How long it is going to take to reverse the effects of Virtual Autism? 

  • This is something that no one can guarantee. It depends on several things

    • How much the child is impacted currently. The more impacted the child, the more time it will take to reverse the impacts. 

    • How old the child is. Brain development in general slows down with age. The older the child is, the more time it will take to reverse the impacts. 

    • How closely we observe the child and apply the right strategies. 

Due to the impacts and severity of Virtual Autism, the child's neurological system might not have grown enough to even understand the day to day language we use and the social interactions we do. The child may not be able to interpret what we are saying, what we are asking the child to do.

All this is not the child's fault. And neither yours, as a parent. 

Important thing to understand here is you have your friends, family, medical professionals etc to talk about your situation and state of mind. But for the child, you are their world; they don't know anyone other than you and they look forward to you for all the love and care. 

It is essential to be empathic towards the child and always remember 'You are their world'.

Now that we have understood all the technicalities and state of mind of the child, we will start our journey to create and execute strategies to help the child overcome their challenges. 

Let's start from here.