A CARING HAND FOR THOSE LIVING ON THE SPECTRUM

Indians living with autism need much more legal, institutional and societal support than they have at present. This World Autism Day, let's rededicate ourselves to the cause

- KM CHANDRASEKHAR

MY second granddaughter was born in 2007. She was a happy child and spent hours babbling meaninglessly and laughing by herself the first few months. She grew normally, speaking a few words and then little sentences. But soon, when she was about a year and a half, autism struck. Fortunately, my daughter chose not to live in a state of denial. She sought medical help and a painfully slow therapy commenced. At sixteen, she is still autistic, as those on the autism spectrum usually do-as in the case of Dr Shaun Murphy in the excellent serial, The Good Doctor but my daughter and her family are better able to cope now.

The sad truth is that autism is growing rather than declining. Two decades ago, it was estimated at one in every 100 persons in the US; now, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimates it at one in 36. According to a 2021 study published in the Indian Journal of Pediatrics, the incidence is one in 68 in India. A survey led by SK Raina in Himachal Pradesh in 2017 came out with the startling figure of a 0.15 percent incidence of autism in rural, tribal and urban areas of three districts of the state. Even if we take the all-India average, there are 20 million people in India who have autism, almost the population of Australia.

The boy-girl ratio in autism cases is 3:1 in India and 4:1 in the US. In a paper published in Lancet Public Health in 2018, written by Obusanya BO and others, it is stated that 95 percent of people with neurodevelopmental problems are in middle- and lowincome countries. The figures for India are probably understated because there is a lack of awareness. Even educated and wellto-do people choose to live in denial about the neurodevelopmental problem their offspring face, thus lowering their chances of improvement in very early stages. As we approach World Autism Day on April 2, we need to take a hard look at what we can do collectively as a society.