Study Concludes Children with Autism at Greater Risk for Suicide

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If you are a parent who has given birth to a child within the last couple of years, you no doubt have been watching him or her closely as your child learns certain basic life skills. Crawling, walking, grabbing things and simply watching and learning are all thrilling for new parents to watch. As the child gets a bit older, watching him or her learn how to interact with people and the surrounding world is just as exciting, as this is the stage when parents begin to see a bit of what that child’s personality will be like as he or she grows up.

Unfortunately, more and more parents in recent years have noticed that their children struggle to interact with others and with the outside world in general well beyond the points in development when they should. This lack of progress tends to trigger deeply troubling thoughts that ultimately lead to a trip to a specialist. If you are one of the parents whose child has been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, you are certainly facing an extreme struggle on many different levels.

It seems as though the more we learn about the different autism spectrum disorders, the more challenges we uncover. Researchers may have recently uncovered yet another difficulty that parents of autistic children could face if the results of their study prove to be accurate. That study involved looking at the risk of suicide faced by children with an autism spectrum disorder as they grow older and begin to experience different types of thoughts.

In a study that was funded by Autism Speaks and the Children’s Miracle Network, researchers compared the answers to questions provided by parents of different types of children. These parents had children who were autistic, children who are not autistic but who were depressed and parents of children who did not struggle with either of these disorders. The study found that children who had autism were 28 times more likely to contemplate suicide either ‘sometimes’ or ‘very often’ and that children with depression were three times more likely to have these thoughts than children without either disorder.

The researchers recommended that parents of children with autism watch them closely and monitor their regular thoughts and emotions. They further recommended that parents who are concerned that a child may be having these thoughts obtain help as soon as possible. While this is sound advice, the problem is that many parents are not in a position where they can simply pay for any type of treatment that they feel would be helpful.

This is particularly troubling if a child was diagnosed with autism because of a mistake that was made by medical professionals while that child was in the process of being born. That’s because parents face these difficulties because of events that could have been avoided. If this includes you, contact the New York medical malpractice lawyers at The Fitzgerald Law Firm today to schedule a free initial consultation.

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