What Cause Autism?

Autism is a developmental disorder, which is diagnosed based on a group of behavioral symptoms leading to difficulty in communicating and forming relationships. Some of those symptoms include social difficulties, fixated interests, obsessive or repetitive actions and unusually blunt reactions to sensory stimulation. The major symptoms involve no eye contact, no attention, no understanding and frequent tantrums. Some factors that might cause autism in children can be accessibility to toxic substances, or an older parental age. Signs of autism usually appear during the first three years of childhood and continue throughout life. Although there is no cure, appropriate management may help with healthy development and reduce undesirable behaviors. Autism differs a great deal in severity. The worst cases are extremely repetitive, unusual, self-hurting, and aggressive behavior. This behavior may continue to exist over time and prove very difficult to change, presenting a huge challenge to those who must live with, treat, and teach these people. The mildest forms of autism look like a personality disorder connected with a learning disability. The clearest feature of autism is weakened social interaction. Children with autism may not respond to their names and often avoid looking at other people. Such children often have difficulty understanding tone of voice or facial expressions and do not respond to others' emotions or watch other people’s faces for hints and signals about appropriate behavior. They appear unaware of others' feelings toward them and of the bad effect of their behavior on other people. Many children with autism start in repeating movements such as rocking and hair twirling, or in self-hurting 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." Some speak in a singing voice about a narrow range of favorite topics, with little regard for the interests of the person to whom they are speaking. People with autism often have abnormal responses to sounds, touch, or other sensory stimulation. Some doctors also use terms such as "emotionally disturbed" to describe people with autism. …show more content…
Because it differs widely in its severity and symptoms, autism may go unrecognized, especially in mildly affected people or in those with many handicaps. Researchers and therapists have developed several sets of diagnostic requirements for autism. Some frequently used criteria include the following: Absence or weakness of imaginative and social play, weakened ability to make friends with peers, weakened ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others stereotyped, repetitive, or unusual use of language, restricted patterns of interests that are abnormal in strength or focus, unable to move to particular routines or rituals, and constant thoughts with parts of objects. A.B.A, or applied behavioral analysis therapy generally works for children with autism by breaking down every day actions into small, easy to learn steps through memorization and countless repetition. A.B.A specialists teach children how to use language while adjusting tone, how to engage in imaginative play and how to make gestures and interpret them from others. However, both L. and Jackie consider A.B.A therapy controversial along with other therapists and parents because of the assumption it can turn children into ‘robots’ and because it doesn’t necessarily have the same effects on every child. It is also disputable because O. Ivar Lovaas study of A.B.A relied on aversives, or punishments to induce change in behavior such as sharp …show more content…
had early medical records diagnosing them with autism and they now had no criteria of autism. A study led by Catherine Lord that tracked 85 children from the age of two for two decades found that about nine percent of them were no longer autistic. However, it isn’t known as to why subgroups of those children who were autistic through development lost all symptoms of autism. Scientists suspect that some children recover from autism and others do not because it is possible that autism can be a range of conditions that have “different genetic and environmental etiologies,” or a set of causes that happen to produce similar symptoms. This theory would explain why some children progress after receiving treatment and others do not. Lord’s study also shows a correlation in the role of I.Q. in children with autism. Children with a nonverbal I.Q. of less than 70 at age two all remained autistic, those children with a nonverbal I.Q. of at least 70 at age two eventually became