source: http://idealparentsforum..com/2009/07/mothers-of-children-with-autism-have.html#links

When you show an autistic child a balance of love with firmness, they learn to control their temper tantrums and gradually improve.

@MCLOVIN
are you now saying that the autistic children are not being shown enough love?

Dominique,
If u have lived with an autistic child for even 1week youll realise they are the hardest creatures on the planet to show kindness to let alone love.
Imagine an 8 yr old crying for 3hrs non-stop, throwing your stuff about and breaking things just because she's upset about something you dnt even know about. If you ask they wnt tell u , if beat them, they wnt say what theyre problem is, the only you can do short of killing them is to be calm, be firm and let them know theyre loved but at the same time let them know theyre seriously annoying you. If you keep up this routine their behaviour becomes more socially acceptable with time. A girl with this behaviour lived in my house for 6mnths but was forced to develop rudimentary social skills, become compliant, lady-like and quite friendly by the time she left.
She's a joy to her parents today.

@MCLOVIN
was the child diagnosed as autistic?
from what i know about th disease, she propably isnt.

Dominique
I would never label a poor child autistic, if she hadn't been diagnosed prior.
The child was diagnosed by a paediatric neurologist in Toronto , Canada at infancy. Of course the parents and others were in shock and even denial but the important thing is she's doing well today.
What is it abt the child that isnt typical?I ve only mentioned her social problems, I havent bothered to go into her other cognitive challenges is that why ?
On the other hand, it would be helpful to the forum if you would share your knowledge on this condition as learning disabilities are often mis-understood in this part of world. No extra knowledge is ever too much or unappreciated.

Ok let’s talk about Autism, shall we-

Autism belongs to a group of disorders considered as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). They are called Pervasive (as against Specific) developmental disorders because they affect multiple functions.  This is in contrast to Specific Developmental disorders, where specific functions like reading (dyslexia), spelling/writing (dysgraphia) etc are affected.

In Autism, the ‘pervasiveness’, so to speak, includes the following 3 areas:

1.Speech/language delay-the individual is unable to engage in meaningful interactive communication. Strangers may struggle to understand what they are saying. Some may just dismiss them as 'olodo'.

2.Problems with social interaction-the individuals have a problem with understanding normal social cues. They lack awareness of people’s emotions and cannot see things from other people’s point of view. A brilliant book I would recommend is ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, by Mark Haddon, supposedly written by somebody with Aspergers syndrome (a variant of PDD, closely related to Autism and which belongs in a group called the Autism Spectrum Disorders). This book is actually very interesting and will give an insight into how these folks think and interact with others.

3.Lack of flexibility of behavior and thought-they are set in their routines. Any slight change will cause them extreme frustration. This leads to the incidents of temper tantrums etc. You could say, if you want to sound 'clinical' that they have a 'narrow and restricted repertoire of behavior and thinking'.
 
Autism is NOT considered a Learning Disability per se. However the rule of thumb is that 50% of them have an IQ lower than 50; 70% have IQ’s lower than 70, while 100% have IQ’s lower than 100. To qualify as having Mild Learning Disability, you need to be functioning at an IQ less than 70. So one can say that up to 30% are not learning disabled,

The approach to management is Behavioral interventions. The objective is to positively re-enforce good behavior, setting boundaries and that sort of thing. You could do what we call a 'functional anaysis' of any unacceptable behaviour. This would include understanding the Antecedents of that behaviour (i.e what immediately lead up to the maladaptive behaviour like throwing a temper tantrum); and how it was dealt with, in order for you to understand if there is any clear pattern of behaviour that may be nipped in the bud by responding to it differently (i can elaborate on this if my explanation is not clear enough).

Language and Social skills training is also very important. In an ideal situation the severely disabled should be in special schools.  The few who are borderline learning disabled and in the lower spectrum of ‘normal’ intelligence should be able to be go to mainstream school and end up being vocationally trained.

Unfortunately, in societies where the condition is not understood they will be bullied by both their teachers, peers and even their family.

Medication is only symptomatic.

@MCLOVIN
i'm afraid i'm a bit lazy whwn it comes to internet reserch
Beneli pretty much explained it all

@Dominique
Lol ! How convinient. . . !
@beneli
Thanks, that was simply brilliant.
The child in question was actually taken to see a doctor after her failure to establish and maintain eye contact with her parents as well falling short of her developmental milestones for speech, expected for infants her age at the time.