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AUTISM CHARACTERISTICS
On the surface, individuals who have
autism are physically indistinguishable from those without. Some studies
show that autistic children tend to have larger head circumferences but
the significance in the disorder is unclear. Sometimes autism co-occurs
with other disorders, and in those cases outward differences may be
apparent.
Individuals diagnosed with autism can vary greatly in skills and
behaviors, and their response to sensory input shows marked differences in
a number of ways from that of other people. Certain stimulations, such as
sounds, lights, and touch, will often affect someone with autism
differently than someone without, and the degree to which the sensory
system is affected can vary greatly from one individual to another.
Key Behaviors
Autistic children may display unusual behaviors or fail to display
expected behaviors. Normal behaviors may develop at the appropriate age
and then disappear or, conversely, are delayed and develop quite some time
after normal occurrence.[citation needed] In assessing developmental
delays, different physicians may not always arrive at the same
conclusions. Much of this difference between diagnosis is due to the
disputed criteria for autism. Deciding how a child should behave is also
difficult because diagnostic tests have to be objective, which is not a
simple thing to accomplish.[citation needed] Nevertheless, professionals
within pediatrics, child psychology, behavior analysis, and child
development are always looking for early indicators of autism.
Some behaviors cited by the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development and listed below may simply mean a normal delay in one or more
areas of development, while others are more typical of ASDs—Autistic
Spectrum Disorders.
Noted behaviors
Not a "one size fits all" label, autism is a spectrum disorder,
meaning it encompasses a very wide range of behaviors and symptoms.
The list below is not all-inclusive, and generally applies to children.
Furthermore, while some of these behaviors might be seen in a person with
autism, others may be absent.
does not respond to his/her name.
cannot explain what he/she wants.
language skills are slow to develop or speech is delayed.
doesn't follow directions.
at times, the child seems to be deaf.
seems to hear sometimes, but not other times.
doesn't point or wave "bye-bye."
doesn't understand the concept of pointing; will look at the hand pointing
rather than the object being pointed at.
used to say a few words or babble, but now he/she doesn't.
throws intense or violent tantrums.
has odd movement patterns.
likes to spin around in a circle.
is overly active, uncooperative, or resistant.
doesn't know how to play with toys.
doesn't smile when smiled at.
has poor eye contact.
gets "stuck" doing the same things over and over and can't move on to
other things.
seems to prefer to play alone.
gets things for him/herself only.
is very independent for his/her age.
does things "early" compared to other children.
seems to be in his/her "own world."
seems to tune people out.
is not interested in other children.
dislikes playing pretend.
walks on his/her toes.
shows unusual attachments to toys, objects, or schedules (i.e., always
holding a string or having to put socks on before pants).
spends a lot of time stacking objects, lining things up or putting things
in a certain order.
unconcerned about - or completely oblivious to - dangers around him/her
(i.e., standing in the middle of the street without worrying about getting
hit by a car).
Social development
Typically, developing infants are social beings -- early in life
they gaze at people, turn toward voices, grasp at fingers, and smile. In
contrast, most autistic children do not show special interest in faces and
seem to have tremendous difficulty learning to engage in everyday human
interaction. Even in the first few months of life, many autistic children
seem indifferent to other people, lacking the eye contact and interaction
with others that non-autistic children exhibit naturally.[citation needed]
Some infants with autism may appear very calm; they may cry less often
because they do not seek parental attention or ministration.[citation
needed] For other children with autism, infantile development progresses
normally through language acquisition. Between 18 months and 2 years,
however, skills previously mastered disappear, including language and
social skills.[citation needed]
Autistic children often seem to prefer being alone and may passively
accept such things as hugs and cuddling without reciprocating, or resist
attention altogether.[citation needed] Later, they seldom seek comfort
from others or respond to parents' displays of anger or affection in a
typical way.[citation needed] Research has suggested that, despite popular
belief, many autistic children have bonded with their parents -- and
anecdotal evidence certainly supports this notion. However, this bond may
be difficult for others to recognize because an autistic child's
particular ways of expressing this attachment may differ from the patterns
of expression used by their typical peers.[citation needed] Though social
deficits are common, autistic children may vary significantly in their
levels of social attachment and interaction.
According to Simon Baron-Cohen et al (1985), many autistic children appear
to lack a "theory of mind". Theory of mind refers to representing
epistemic mental states such as knowing, believing, deceiving or
imagining, and tying them together "into a coherent understanding of how
mental states and actions are related."This is a behavior cited as being
exclusive to human beings above the age of five and possibly, to a lesser
degree, to other higher primates such as adult gorillas, chimpanzees and
bonobos. Typical 5-year-olds can usually develop insights into other
people's knowledge, feelings, and intentions based on social cues (e.g.,
gestures, vocal tone and facial expressions). An autistic individual may
lack these interpretation skills, leaving them unable to predict or
understand other people's actions or intentions.
Many children with autism experience social alienation during their
school-age years. As a response to this, or perhaps because their social
surroundings simply do not "fit" them, many report inventing imaginary
friends, worlds, or scenarios. Making friends in real life and maintaining
those friendships often proves to be difficult for those with autism.
Although not universal, behavioral lability may be common, resulting in
crying, verbal outbursts, or self-injurious behaviors that seem
inappropriate or without cause. Those who have autism may benefit from
consistent routines and environments, and they may react negatively to
changes in their surroundings. It is not uncommon for these individuals to
exhibit poorly modulated behaviors, increased levels of self-stimulatory
behavior, self-injury, or extensive withdrawal in overwhelming
situations.[citation needed] However, as an affected individual matures
and receives specific socialization education and training, skill may be
attained in the recognition of behavioral triggers and more appropriate
means of coping will be available for difficult social circumstances.
Sensory system
Indicators of autism include oversensitivity or under reactivity to
touch, movement, sights, or sounds; physical clumsiness or carelessness;
poor body awareness; a tendency to be easily distracted; impulsive
physical or verbal behavior; an activity level that is unusually high or
low; not unwinding or calming oneself; difficulty learning new movements;
difficulty in making transitions from one situation to another; social
and/or emotional problems; delays in speech, language or motor skills;
specific learning difficulties/delays in academic achievement. However, it
is important to remember that while most people with autism have some
degree of sensory integration difficulty, not every person who has sensory
problems is autistic.
Autistic individuals may sometimes also develop obsessions or routines
around foods, restricting what is eaten to certain colors, textures or
types of food; alternatively they may obsessively avoid certain foods with
similar characteristics.
One common example is autistic hearing. An autistic person may have
trouble hearing certain people while other people are perceived as
speaking at a higher volume. Or the autistic may be unable to filter out
sounds in certain situations, such as in a large crowd of people. However,
this is perhaps a part of autism that tends to vary widely from person to
person, so these examples may not apply to every autistic person. Note
that such auditory difficulties fall under auditory processing disorders,
and like sensory integration dysfunction, are not necessarily experienced
by all people with autism or indicative of a diagnosis of autism.
Autism and blindness
The characteristics of a person with both an Autism Spectrum
Disorder (ASD) and a severe visual impairment (VI) may vary from a person
with just ASD or just VI. Historically, many behaviors of blind children
were seen as "autistic-like" but were attributed to their blindness rather
than pursuing possibilities of autism.
Developmental trajectories of children with ASD-VI are often very similar
as those followed by children with typical autism, but the child with ASD-VI
will have particularly unusual responses to sensory information. The
person may be overly sensitive to touch or sound, or be less responsive to
pain. Typically, touch, smell, and sound are affected the most
dramatically.
Communication difficulties
Some people with autism demonstrate advanced cognitive ability, but
lack the skills or are not inclined to interact with others socially. An
example of this is the noted autistic Temple Grandin, who holds a PhD and
is a successful developer of livestock handling technologies. She
describes her inability to understand the social communication of
neurotypicals as leaving her feeling "like an anthropologist on Mars."
Grandin's case was described by neurologist Oliver Sacks in his 1995 book
titled An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales.
Perhaps due to their difficulties communicating with other humans, some
autistics have gravitated toward working with animals. Temple Grandin's
bestselling book Animals In Translation describes her observations and
theories about animals, taken from her work with cattle. Dawn
Prince-Hughes, diagnosed with Asperger's, describes her observations of
gorillas in Songs of the Gorilla Nation. Another autistic author is Tito
Mukhopadhyay, one of whose books is The Mind Tree.
Some infants who later show signs of autism coo and babble during the
first few months of life, but stop soon afterwards. Others may be delayed,
developing language as late as the teenage years. Still, inability to
speak does not mean that people with autism are unintelligent or unaware.
Once given appropriate accommodations, some will happily converse for
hours, and can often be found in online chat rooms, discussion boards or
websites and even using communication devices at autism-community social
events such as Autreat.
Sometimes, the body language of people with autism can be difficult for
other people to understand. Facial expressions, movements, and gestures
may be easily understood by some other people with autism, but do not
match those used by other people. Also, their tone of voice has a much
more subtle inflection in reflecting their feelings, and the auditory
system of a person without autism often cannot sense the fluctuations.
What seems to non-autistic people like odd prosody; things like a
high-pitched, sing-song, or flat, robot-like voice may be common in
autistic children and some will have combinations of these prosody issues.
Some autistic children with relatively good language skills speak like
little adults, rather than communicating at their current age level, which
is one of the things that can lead to problems.
Since non-autistic people are often unfamiliar with the autistic body
language, and since autistic natural language may not tend towards speech,
autistic people often struggle to let other people know what they need. As
anybody might do in such a situation, they may scream in frustration or
resort to grabbing what they want. While waiting for non-autistic people
to learn to communicate with them, people with autism do whatever they can
to get through to them. Communication difficulties may contribute to
autistic people becoming socially anxious or depressed or prone to
self-injurious behaviors. Recently, with the awareness that those with
autism can have more than one condition, a significant percentage of
people with autism are being diagnosed with co-morbid mood, anxiety and
compulsive disorders which may also contribute to behavioral and
functioning challenges.
Repetitive behaviors
Although people with autism usually appear physically normal,
unusual repetitive motions, known as self-stimulation or "stimming," may
set them apart. These behaviors might be extreme or subtle. Some children
and older individuals spend a lot of time repeatedly flapping their arms
or wiggling their toes, others suddenly freeze in position. Some spend
hours arranging objects in a certain way rather than engaging in pretend
play as a typical child might, and becoming agitated if they are
re-arranged or moved. Repetitive behaviors can also extend into the spoken
word; perseveration of a single word or phrase can also become a part of
the child's daily routine. Some may repeat words from movies and watch
certain bits over and over again. Autistic children may demand consistency
in their environment. A slight change in the timing, format or route of a
routine or trip can be extremely disturbing to them. [citation needed].
Autistics sometimes have persistent, intense preoccupations. For example,
the child might be obsessed with learning all about computers, television
programs, lighthouses or virtually any other topic.
Effects in education
Children with autism are affected by their symptoms every day,
which set them apart from unaffected students. Because of problems with
receptive language and theory of mind, they can have difficulty
understanding some classroom directions and instruction, along with subtle
vocal and facial cues of teachers. This inability to fully decipher the
world around them often makes education stressful. Teachers need to be
aware of a student's disorder, and ideally should have specific training
in autism education, so that they are able to help the student get the
best out of his or her classroom experiences.
Some students learn more effectively with visual aids as they are better
able to understand material presented visually. Because of this, many
teachers create “visual schedules” for their autistic students. This
allows students to concretely see what is going on throughout the day, so
they know what to prepare for and what activity they will be doing next.
Some autistic children have trouble going from one activity to the next,
so this visual schedule can help to reduce stress.
Research has shown that working in pairs may be beneficial to autistic
children. Autistic students have problems not only with language and
communication, but with socialization as well. By facilitating peer
interaction, teachers can help their students with autism make friends,
which in turn can help them cope with problems or understand the world
around them. This can help them to become more integrated into the
mainstream environment of the classroom.
A teacher's aide can also be useful to the student. The aide is able to
give more elaborate directions that the teacher may not have time to
explain to the autistic child and can help the child to stay at an
equivalent level to the rest of the class through the special one-on-one
instruction. However, some argue that students with one-on-one aides may
become overly dependent on the help, thus leading to difficulty with
independence later on.
There are many different techniques that teachers can use to assist their
students. A teacher needs to become familiar with the child’s disorder to
know what will work best with that particular child. Every child is going
to be different and teachers have to be able to adjust with every one of
them.
Students with autism spectrum disorders sometimes have high levels of
anxiety and stress, particularly in social environments like school. If a
student exhibits aggressive or explosive behavior, it is important for
educational teams to recognize the impact of stress and anxiety. Preparing
students for new situations, such as through writing social stories, can
lower anxiety. Teaching social and emotional concepts using systematic
teaching approaches such as The Incredible 5-Point Scale or other
cognitive behavioral strategies can increase a student's ability to
control excessive behavioral reactions.
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1
Terminology
2
History
3
Characteristics
Key Behaviors
Noted behaviors
Social development
Sensory system
Autism and blindness
Communication difficulties
Repetitive behaviors
Effects in education
4
DSM definition
5
Types of autism
Asperger's and Kanner's syndrome
Autism as a spectrum disorder
6
Epidemiology
7
Treatment
8
Causes
Physiology and Neurology
Genetic Component
9
Sociology
Community and politics
Culture
Autistic adults
Terminology
Autistic savants
References |
