Welcome to Furaha Center!    info@furahacentre.org

Blog

Autism In Africa

3

Autism In Africa

Many African children with autism are hidden away at home – sometimes chained up, almost always undiagnosed. Efforts to bring the condition into the open are only just beginning.

The eight-year-old girl’s head droops like a wilted flower as she sits slumped in a wooden chair in her mother’s kitchen. Her wrists are swollen from the dingy white shoelace that binds them behind her back. The girl’s mother, Aberu Demas, weeps as she unties her...

Read
Can monkeys have autism?

3

Can monkeys have autism?

When Kyoko Yoshida and his colleagues in Japan noticed one of their research monkeys was behaving strangely, they decided to study it more closely. They realised that some of the behaviour it was displaying – repetition, reduced social behaviours and an impaired ability to change behaviour in response to others’ actions – bore similarities to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in humans. They found more similarities with autistic humans when they studied the monkey’s DNA.

Yet autism is a...

Read
Language

3

Language

Words matter. The way we use them to communicate with or about others can have a huge impact on people’s lives. This is especially the case when it comes to disability. Handicapped. Retarded. Mad. Activists have campaigned hard to eradicate such terms, which are offensive and perpetuate a negative view of disabled people – one as passive, unable to take control over their own lives.

Responding to this demand, recent government guidelines have encouraged clinicians and teachers to use...

Read