Who Are They
A Look Into Autism
Definition
Autism is a group of developmental brain disorders, collectively called autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The "spectrum" refers to the wide range of symptoms, skills, and levels of impairment, or disability, that children with ASD can have.
Five disorders a person with ASD can have;
Autistic disorder (classic autism)
Asperger's disorder (Asperger syndrome)
Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS)
Rett's disorder (Rett syndrome)
Childhood disintegrative disorder (CDD).
Look Deeper
Symptoms
Common Symptoms of Autism are issues with
- Interaction
- Communication
- Talking
- Looking people in the eye
They also may say the sentence over and over again. Its common for people with autism to take time trying to make sense out of what you say to them. They often can't understand tone of voice, which means if you say "Stop it" and you are joking, they may get offended, and if you are serious they may not have the mental capabilities to understand that you are serious.
Symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) vary from one child to the next, but in general, they fall into three areas:
Social impairment
Communication difficulties
Repetitive and stereotyped behaviors
They can't understand simple facial gestures such as a wik, a grimace, or a smile.
The sevarity of ASD has a large range. Some are only mildly impared and others are very severely disabled.
Typically, the first people to notice the symptoms of ASD are the childs parents. This is often by parents comparing their childrens behavior with other children of the same age. Some babies, before their first birthday, become overly obsessed or focused n an object, dont make eye contact, and fail to engage in typical back-and-forth play and babbling with their parents.
Some children with autism may:
Fail or be slow to respond to their name or other verbal attempts to gain their attention
Fail or be slow to develop gestures, such as pointing and showing things to others
Coo and babble in the first year of life, but then stop doing so
Develop language at a delayed pace
Learn to communicate using pictures or their own sign language
Speak only in single words or repeat certain phrases over and over
Repeat words or phrases that they hear
Use words that seem odd, out of place, or have a special meaning known only to those familiar with the child's way of communicating
Children with ASD often cannot understand or preform cirtain gestures that are simple to those without the disorder.
The Science Of It All
so on and so forth.
Identical twins, who share the exact same genetic code, nine out of ten times, if one child has ASD, so does their twin. Also, children who have siblings that have ASD have a higher risk of developing the disorder 35 times that of a child who does not have sibling with it.
Loss or reversal of normal development is called regression and occurs in some children with ASD. Some children can develop normally for the first two or three years of their life, but then start to lose interest in others and become silent, withdrawn, or indifferent to social signals; which is regression.
There are very few treatments, becuse the cause has not yet been found. But, two treatments are; behavior and communication therapies, and medicines to control symptoms.