'How to know if your child is autistic'- Mrs Dotun Akande Founder of Nigeria's 1st Autism school

Autism is a condition that most Nigerian parents are unaware of. Many people assume that autism is a mental problem when it is not necessarily so. Others call it spiritual attacks and even believe that autistic children are imbeciles, mad or crazy.


Many parents abandon their children who are living with autism to orphanages because they do not know how to handle their kids, leaving these kids who are unable to coordinate themselves, even more vulnerable. Most people used to think autism is a white man’s disease but the fact is that autism is the second fastest rising condition in the world.

Even though the cause of this difficult condition is yet unknown, children living with autism have a very important need; to live a functional life which includes the ability to read, write, understand currency, go shopping, calculate and lead an independent life.

The first centre in Nigeria, totally dedicated to managing children living with autism was founded in 2006 by Mrs Dotun Akande, a mother who also gave birth to a child diagnosed with autism. After series of care and attention, her very brilliant son, is now in college. This huge improvement inspired Mrs Akande to venture into training and caring for other children who were born different like her own child.  Ever since the centre opened 10 years ago, about 50 individuals have passed through from Patrick School to other regular schools.

Her victory led to the need to hear her story  and tell it to even more people who have a similar situation and probably aren’t sure of what to do about it. City People visited her centre, Patrick School of Languages, based in Ikeja GRA, a centre that has become a haven for parents whose children need all the care and grooming needed to transit into the normal schools. 

The Patrick School premise is a very serene one, where these children diagnosed with autism are taught how to relate with their environment and the people around them. The age range of the students at Patrick school currently is between 3-35 years. They are taught speech, music, academics, how to coordinate, socialise, play and run errands.

The love with which Mrs Akande deals with the children is very evident in the way that they get excited when they see her. The children are separated into various classes depending on their age and level of understanding after the necessary assessment.  Some of the children are brought in from home by their parents while others are brought in from orphanages.

 Many of the children brought in from the orphanage are usually given one-on-one attention due to their lack of medical history. The centre also has some of the most qualified therapists in the country, working there. The school has behavioural, speech therapists who work hand-in-hand with the children to make sure that they do well and are transferred to regular schools like other children; a step that proves that they can now coordinate and lead functional lives by themselves, to a large extent. Mrs Akande monitors the activities of the centre from the cameras in her office. 

After the tour around the school, the amazing experiences would make you ask many questions. What causes autism?  According to Mrs Akande, “We don’t know. Many people are saying genetic components. They are saying genetic because sometimes we have multiple members of the same family whose children have been diagnosed with autism. Sometimes it could be that my brother or sister’s child could be diagnosed with the condition.  There is also the possibility of environmental components. In the course of our journey we have seen children that have challenges with gut issues.

Gut issues such as when they eat certain foods, you will see some form of indigestion. When they eat certain foods you see constipation. Those are some of the things that we see that tells us that it just might be environmental. We know that the womb is also an environment it could be that something happens in the womb and eventually, the child has autism. The cause of autism is still very much at the research stage”.

What we are saying is that a lot of families have what we call the ‘boy syndrome’. Of all the families we have come across who have children with autism, there are more families with autistic male children. 

On an average of 10 children living with autism, there may be 8 boys amongst them as you can see at the centre”.

Before diagnosis, there some signs to look out for in your child. According to Mrs Akande, “The first thing is that before the child is 18 months, you would expect to hear words like daddy, mummy, come, take. By 24 months when those words are not coming, the parents begin to worry and those times, you call the name of the child and the child doesn’t answer you.  But when you play the child’s favourite cartoon, even if the child is upstairs in the room, you would find the child running down even though you may have lowered the volume and it is surprising. The first thing we say to them when they bring a child to us is that a hearing test be carried out so that we can rule out the hearing and begin to assess the child. Another sign is odd behaviour, looking from the corner of the eyes, laughing, walking on tip toes.”

“We also have the lack of social communication. For example, you tell a child ‘oh look! But the child is not following your gaze or where your finger is pointed to. You could find the child playing with an object in an odd manner. For example, a toy car that needs to be driven on its wheels, the child might throw it upside down with the wheels up and be fascinated by those wheels.”

“There is what we call behavioural challenges that come with them being attached to certain things. Like a child who only wants to pay with the cover of a coca-cola bottle, or a pen cover, that must always be in the child’s hands. If you take that object from the child, anxiety starts and the child begins to fret until they get the object back.”

“Sometimes, you will see the child lining objects in a particular manner, arranging everything in the room. Like all the shoes in the house, in a straight line. If you go there and pick one, the child runs back there to make sure that the line is intact. This is one of the symptoms of what we call OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). They are obsessed. When anything steps out of where it used to be, they want it put back. When they come back from school and the remote control has been placed in a different location, they make sure that it is lying right where it should be. Especially when you start getting to the teenage age and a lot of hormonal changes start coming. You start seen more of the OCD that comes with autism. Some of them get over it, depending on how severe the OCD is. If it’s not bothering anybody, like minor things, once their hormones balance again, you’ll see a change”. 

In case you’re wondering what happens to the children after the transition to regular schools, here’s what the school’s founder said, “Sometimes, they go into the regular school system with shadows. Shadows sit with them in class while they do the work. We gradually fade that part out. What I always say to parents is to try them out first and then if they are not coping, you can introduce a shadow. What we also do is that they go to the regular school two days a week and come here on the other days. Some cope and some don’t but it all depends on the parents. Our wish is that the children go and settle in the regular school system, permanently”.

This interview was conducted in 2015 for City People magazine by Health Journo's founder