Autism is a lifelong affliction that reduces the ability to understand what is seen, heard, and touched. It can cause profound problems in personal behavior and in the ability to relate to others.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism is a developmental disability that typically makes its presence felt in the first three years of life. It is in fact a neurological disorder that affects the brain and prevents it from functioning normally. Problems in autism arise in the areas of social development, difficulties in communication and behavior patterns that can be stereotyped. This autism spectrum disorder or ASD has not racial or ethnic boundaries and has an incidence that is the same all round the world. The incidence is said to be one in every 150 births. It is said to be more common in boys than in girls. Autism definition can signify a disorder that causes an escape from reality and immersion into a fantasy world.

Traits That Define Autism

Social developmental and communication characteristics of autistic persons include a preference for being alone, avoidance of eye contact, an aversion to cuddling, inappropriate attachments to objects, very poor motor skills that make it difficult for the person to dress up or hold objects, a lack of response to verbal cues and a firm resistance to change of any kind in their daily life or routines.

Behavior patterns for people afflicted with autism can include tantrums and behavior that can injure the autistic person, laughing or crying and showing signs of distress for very obscure reasons, repeating the same phrases all the time, responses that can be indicate low sensory reception or exaggerated responses to the same and odd motions that they repeat all the time.

Infantile autism

In infantile autism, autistic children show a marked failure in an ability to form relationships with their peers, and are unable to share any interests or even toys with other children. There is quite often a delay in developing the spoken language and also no attempt to communicate in other methods of communication like gestures. Even when the child does develop some skills in the language, there is a marked disinclination to conduct a conversation with others and this trait continues into later lie. Even conversations that are begun are not sustained. Hand flapping or other body movements that are quite complex may be repeated constantly with apparently no real trigger that causes such movements. Children with autism that is classic will not be able to perform properly on any diagnostic tests and remain quite unengaged and non-verbal in their responses to others.

Distinguishing autism from retardation or other disorders of the mind is quite difficult, and quite often leads to the wrong treatment. Autistic children can also grow up into adults that have intelligence that is above average. Their obsessions with restricted interests can even lead them to develop an expertise in areas that are far above that of normal people. Such high functioning autism generally will have well developed language skills as per normal standards.