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Definition
Autism is a complex developmental disorder that affects a person's ability to communicate, respond to surroundings, or form relationships with others.
What is Autism?
Commonly referred to as Autistic disorder or infantile autism, autism is a complex brain disorder that inhibits a person's ability to communicate, respond to surroundings, or form relationships with others. Four times more common in boys than girls, it is typically diagnosed by the age of 2 or 3 and affects people of all racial, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.
Autism is a spectrum that encompasses a wide continuum of behavior. Core features include impaired social interactions, impaired verbal and non-verbal communication and restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior. Children with autism do not follow the typical patterns of childhood development.
Symptoms/ Warning Signs
Children with autism usually begin to show clear, identifiable symptoms by the age of 18 months. Many parents and experts can usually detect symptoms before this time, however formal diagnosis is typically made when the child exhibits a noticeable delay in developing language skills- normally between the ages of 2 and 3.
Some combination of the following areas may be affected in varying degrees:
- Communication
- Is unable to start or sustain a conversation
- Develops language slowly or not at all
- Repeats words
- Reverses pronouns
- Uses nonsense rhyming
- Communicates with gestures instead of words
- Has a short span of attention
- Social Interaction
- Shows a lack of empathy (can't understand that other people feel differently or know different things)
- Has difficulty making friends
- Is withdrawn
- Prefers to spend time alone rather than with others
- Is less responsive to social cues such as eye contact or smiles
- Play
- Shows a decreased level of pretend or imaginative play
- Shows a decreased level of imitation or actions of others
- Prefers solitary or ritualistic play
- Behaviors
- Uses repetitive body movements
- Shows a strong need for sameness
- `Acts out' with intense tantrums
- Has very narrow interests
- Demonstrates perseverance (an obsessive interest in a single item, idea, activity or person)
- Displays an apparent lack in common sense
- Shows aggression to others or self
- Is overactive or very passive
- Has heightened or decreased senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste
- Rubs surfaces
- Sniffs or licks objects
- Has diminished responses to pain
- May withdraw from physical contact because it is over-stimulating or overwhelming
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