Autism programme at Eden Foundation receives UK accreditation

The Eden Foundation's programme for children with autism has just become the first such specialised service outside the UK to be accredited by the prestigious Autism Services Accreditation Programme of the National Autistic Society, UK.

The accreditation of Eden's Structured Training and Education Programme (STEP) will be officially presented on October 11.

Programme coordinator Doreen Mercieca said the NAS accreditation team carried out a long process of observation and interviews to ensure STEP met the high standards required for accreditation.

STEP was introduced at the foundation in 1995 together with the Early Bird Programme to help parents understand autism and learn how it affects their child.

Ms Mercieca said that as was happening in the rest of the world, cases of autism in Malta were on the rise and these programmes were therefore vital.

"The number of children at Eden with autism has risen by 20 per cent in the last 18 months," Ms Mercieca said.

In 1995, about 20 children with autism attended the STEP programme. Today, there are about 50, and 110 children have so far used this service.

Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life. It is four times more common in boys than in girls and knows no racial, ethnic or social boundaries.

It is not a mental illness and children with autism are not unruly children who choose to misbehave.

Researchers all over the world have long been trying to answer the crucial question of what causes autism. Although a specific cause is not known, research links autism to biological or neurological differences in the brain.

Ms Mercieca explained that autism cases could vary from mild to severe.

Signs of autism include an inability to point or babble in a child's first year; loss of language skills at any time; little interest in making friends; no pretend playing; little or no eye contact; repetitive body movements, such as hand flapping, rocking; fixations on a single object and over-sensitivity to certain sounds or smells.

Detecting autism is not always easy and Ms Mercieca said that parents were often devastated when they discovered that their "beautiful bundle of joy" had suddenly developed something wrong.

Theresa Aquilina, the mother of four-year-old Nathan, who has autism, knows exactly how this feels.

A young mother of 33 with a six-year-old daughter, Jade had planned the birth of her second child Nathan. The pregnancy and birth went very smoothly.

"I know this sounds strange but somehow I always felt this baby needed extra care and protection the second he was born, even though I never dreamt anything was wrong," Ms Aquilina said.

Putting on a brave face, Ms Aquilina recounted how Nathan had already started to say a few words such as 'mama' and 'papa' before they discovered he had autism.

"We even have a video of him looking in the mirror and saying 'pupu jien' and chuckling happily."

However, at 18 months, Nathan started to become withdrawn, preferring to stay on his own and not utter a single word.

"I guess for me autism was like losing my child; as if somebody replaced him with another child. Nathan went from being a chatterbox to just staring in his playpen and not saying a word," she said.

Mary Anne Borg, who also has a four-year-old son with autism, agreed it was the same with her, except that Reuben had never spoken a single word.

"It was hard to accept that Reuben did not react to anything. I would take him for a walk and excitedly point at a cat or dog and he would not react - he would just stare blankly," she said.

However, despite the initial blow of discovering their child had autism, both mothers dealt with the blow and learnt how to see through their child's eyes and deal with autism.

Ms Mercieca said it was very important for parents to try and enter the world of their children in an attempt to better understand them.

"The largest success that parents can achieve in their child is when there is a group effort from all sides, be it Eden, the school or at home," she said.

"At Eden we facilitate and enhance their hidden strengths, but the school staff, family and extended family are vital to the child's progress," she said.

STEP is designed with this in mind to provide intensive specialised training, education and support to allow the development of one's full potential and level of independence.

Divided into three steps, depending on age, the programme is run by a team of professionals who strive to empower children with autism by discovering their specific skills.

"The staff are extremely dedicated and it can take a long time to achieve something small, which for some people would be insignificant, but the satisfaction is incredible," she said.

Though over the last few decades there have been major advances in the psychological and educational approaches that may be employed to aid the development of young people with autism, as yet there is no cure.

So what can be done to help children with autism, and where do we go from here?

These questions will be answered by Prof. Michael Rutter, professor of developmental psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, UK, during a lecture on October 11 to mark Eden's official accreditation ceremony at the Jerma Palace Hotel in Marsascala.