Dr. Ebenezer Vincent Badoe, Director of Neurology Development Clinic, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, on Monday tasked parents to assess their children's communication and language response to enable early intervention if diagnosed with autism.
He said early treatment of autistic children would facilitate a faster speech and language development of the child making life easier for both the parent and the diagnosed child.
Dr. Badoe said this at a seminar on Autism in Accra under the theme; "Bridging the Gap - Stand up for Autism" organized by Awaawaa2, a centre for children with communication disorders, as part of the World Autism Month celebration.
Autism is a condition or neurodevelopment disorder which impacts on the whole communication system of a person by experiencing among others, a language delay or disorder and difficulties with understanding languages and rules of communication.
Dr. Badoe said even though there was no official prevalence rate in Ghana, there were 67 recorded cases
of autism over a period of four years at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and it is overwhelmingly common in males than in females as the ratio is 5 to 1.
He said there were many diseases similar to autism therefore, the need for in-depth evaluation to attain the real diagnoses for a reported case. He added that there were no specific cause to autism but evidence suggested biological causes including genetic factors, viral infections and birth and pregnancy complications.
He advised government to initiate a plan to address this problem by setting up special pre-schools, classrooms and job facilities to suit persons with any neurobiological disorder like autism.
Mr. Andrew Okaikoi, National Executive Chairman of the Disability Council of Ghana and Chairman for the occasion said there is a promising future for persons with disability and autism since the newly inaugurated Disability Council is working hard to create an opportunity for the impaired to be empowered.
He said about 2 million Ghanaians are impaired and their Council has organized a programme to address the negative perception people have of them and encouraged the public to serve as ambassadors to persons with any impairment by helping them with their needs.