AUTISM2AutismIntroductionBy allowing for social skill training and close behavioral monitoring, the home-basedcare practice setting will help improve Ahmed's socialization and cognitive abilities. The home-based care setting allows for the access of quality, holistic, and skilled health care in a familiar,comfortable, and affordable environment. It also allows for the dispensation of culturallycongruent care to the client. Ahmed is a 15-year-old male child who was diagnosed with autismand slight mental retardation at the age of three years old. He relocated to Philadelphia at the ageof five, following his parents' divorce, and lives alongside his mother and sister. The patient'sinitial assessment findings reveal considerable behavioral, developmental, cognitive, andpsychological challenges such as socialization and communication difficulties, anxiety,loneliness and depression, speech and language challenges, difficulty with fine and gross motorskills. Ahmed has poor communication skills, lacks friends, and has low self-esteem and anegative self-image. He is lonely and unconfident and becomes nervous and anxious wheneversomeone approaches him. As per the diagnostic guidelines in the Diagnostic and StatisticalManual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) on autism spectrum disorders, the patient exhibitspersistent deficits in communication and social interaction, which is characterized by lonelinessand the inability to develop social relationships and a deficit in social and emotional reciprocity.Ahmed also has repetitive behavioral patterns such as repetitive motor movements thatparticularly manifest when he is nervous. Ahmed's symptoms began in the early developmentalperiod and have resulted in clinically significant social, cognitive, and psychological impairment.Literature Review
