What is Autism?
Autism is the most common condition in a group of developmental disorders known as the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) (sometimes called “classical autism”) Autism is describe by impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communique, and abnormal, cyclic, or severely limited activities and interests. Other ASDs include Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, childhood dis-integrative disorder, and invasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (usually referred to as PDD-NOS). Experts guess that three to six children out of every 1,000 will have autism. Males are four times more likely to have autism than females.
Autism has its extraction in early brain development. However, the most noticeable signs of autism and symptoms of autism tend to emerge between 12 and 18 months of age.
What are the some common signs of autism?
There are three common conducts that describe autism –
- Autistic children have difficulties with social interaction
- Problems with verbal and nonverbal communication
- Repetitive behaviors or narrow, obsessive interests.
These behaviors can range in impact from mild to disabling. The feature of autism is damaged social interaction. Parents are generally the first to notice signs of autism in their child. In the childhood, a baby with autism may be indifferent to people or focus attentively on one item to the exclusion of others for long periods of time. A child with autism may come out to develop normally and then depart and become indifferent to social engagement.
Usually he/she may be failing to respond to their name and even avoid eye contact with other people. They have difficulty to understand what others are thinking or feeling, because of they are unable to understand social cues, as like tone of voice/facial expressions, and don’t observe other people’s faces for trace about appropriate behavior. They lack sympathy.
Many children with autism engage in repetitive movements such as rocking and twirling, or in self-abusive behavior such as biting or head-banging. They also tend to start speaking later than other children and may refer to themselves by name instead of “I” or “me.” They don’t know how to play interactively with other children. Many of them speak in a sing-song voice about a narrow range of favorite topics, with the person to whom they are speaking.
Many of them have a reduced sensitivity to pain, but are abnormally sensitive to sound, touch, or other sensory stimulation. These unusual reactions may throw in to behavioral symptoms such as a resistance to being clasped or cuddled.
Autistic children appear to have a higher than normal risk for certain co-existing circumstances, with tuberous sclerosis (in which tumors grow on the brain), epileptic seizures, Tourette syndrome, learning disabilities, fragile X syndrome (which causes mental retardation) and attention deficit disorder. For reasons that are still unclear, about 20 to 30 percent of children with autism grow epilepsy by the time they reach adulthood. While people with schizophrenia may show some autistic-like behavior, their symptoms usually do not appear until the late teens or early adulthood.
