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Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder that is aetiologically and clinically heterogeneous. Behavior of the autistic child makes delivery of oral hygiene and dental treatment a problem because of its lack of communication and decreased intelligence. The status of dental health depends on the care of oral hygiene to the auxilary help of parents and educators. Poor food habits are common and diet is often antithetic to good oral health, persistent desire for soft food or sweets is often seen. The caries experience is a comparable with a lower hygiene level than those of the normal children. The dental health education of the autistic children is inherently unresponsive to demonstration, resists eye to eye contact and will frequently resist any effort to establish personal contacts with the dental personnel. Patient management will therefore be qualitatively different from person to person and shall be based on a unique management of the behavioral characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to help the dentist recognized the problems associated with dental treatment, the behaviour in a dental enviroment of the autistic child and their coordination ability required to be assessed, so that the right dental treatment could be adjusted. |
