Autism, also know as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD, sometimes also referred to as Autistic Spectrum Disorder) is a form of complex development disorder or delay. People with autism have difficulties with social interactions, language and communication, both verbal and non verbal. Activities that include elements of play and communication are at most times, challenges for people with autism. Because of impairment in the understanding of language, acquisition of skills are also impeded as a result as most learning requires language.
It is believed by experts within the field that Autism is prevalent during the first three years of a person's life. It is argued that neurological disorder having an effect on normal brain function affects development of the person's communication and social interaction skills.
Autism varies in severity. Individuals with severe autism conditions may experience serious cognitive disability and sensory issues. Behaviours such as tantrums, self-injury, defensiveness and aggression caused by an inability to communicate are also more prevalent and pronounced in individuals with more severe form of autism.
However, as autism is a wide spectrum disorder, no two people with autism will have exactly the same symptoms. However, there are still some common characteristics prevalent among individuals with autism.
1) Social Skills and Communication:
Some people with ASD prefer to keep to themselves and show little to no interest in the people close to or around them. They may also not notice when other people are talking to them.
Interaction is often awkward for people with ASD. They might be very interested, but not know how to talk, play or relate to others. Interaction can be very stressful for them as they have difficulty understanding other's emotions and thoughts. People with ASD are usually very literal in their interpretation of things. Thus, they often lack the imagination and inference skills needed in effective communication and interaction with others.
As people with ASDs often have trouble talking about their own feelings or understanding other people's feelings, difficulty in controlling one's emotion and excitement can thus affect social interaction.
Many individuals with ASD can be unresponsive to eye contact. Children are usually fleeting with their eye contact.
2) Verbal and Non-Verbal Interaction
Speech and language skills are usually delayed. Without proper early intervention, speech and language development could be greatly impeded.
Some people with ASD when without appropriate intervention, do not speak at all. There are other means of communication other than speech for these individuals such as typing (facilitated communication) and signing.
One of the common symptoms is echolilia where the person or child may repeat what is being said to him. The person might also repeat what was being heard over the TV or radio in the past.
People with autism have the tendency to confuse the use of pronouns such as 'I, 'me', 'you', 'your' and my'.
Most people with ASD find it difficult to initiate or maintain meaningful conversation with others. They might have a hard time focusing and listening to others. They might also go on continuously about something they really like, instead of having a back-and-forth discussion with someone.
3) Behaviours
People with autism may have ritualistic actions that they keep repeating. These actions include spinning, rocking, staring, finger flapping, hitting self. However, depedning on the severity of the autism and the level of stress these individuals are undergoing, the rate of these these behaviour differs from person to person.
Anxiety, fear and confusion may result from being unable to "make sense" of the world in the usual way. This might lead to behaviours that are overactive or overtly passive.
They might rigidly depend on routines and want things always to stay the same so there are no surprises. Small changes in the environment or in daily routines such as going home by a different route or having new people around in the house might trigger acute distress or fear. These negative emotions might at times lead to big upsets and meltdowns that baffle others around them.
People with ASDs often have a pattern of interests and may have seemingly odd habits. They may talk about or focus obsessively on a particular thing, idea, activity or person. Sometimes these habits or interests are unusual or socially inappropriate.
4) Sensory Responses
People with ASD may experience heightened sensitivity to the senses. For example, high-pitched intermittent sounds, such as fire alarms or school bells, may be painful. Some children will seek to avoid situations or places that they know will produce such sounds. I have students who get really upset and nervous during assembly period because the playing of the national anthemn actually causes them very much distress!
However, sensory sensitivities vary in autism, from mild to severe hyper and hypo-sensitivities. For example, some individuals with ASD have very high pain thresholds (i.e. insensitive to pain) or very low pain thresholds.
4) Learning and Acquisition of Skills
Many people with ASD have short attention span leading to inability to focus on tasks and learning. They may also be easily distracted by their overt interest in particular items or subjects.
As they are very literal in their intepretation of things and events, they have difficulty understanding abstarct ideas. For example, symbolic play. This will also lead to lack of spontaneous or imaginative play. This is especially of concern in children with autism and therefore early intervention might be able to address the issue.
Individuals with ASD will also have difficulty grasping the concept of time and sequences of events.
Individuals with autism may experience difficulty imitating others. As many things in life require imitation to ensure acquisition of knowledge, this difficulty therefore impedes learning to a great degree. The difficulty in imitation may be due to fine and gross motor difficulty, lack of focus or lack of hand- eye coordination (joint attention).
Finally, on a final note, remember that while there are many common characteristics prevalent among people with autism, every individual is unique. Thus not all people with autism will possess all characteristics and they vary in severity from person to person.
If you have any further questions or feedback, please email me at davensim@triumphantkids.com.
Till the next post, here's wishing you a great week ahead.
With deepest regards,
Daven. :)
www.triumphantkids.com
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