What is Autism?

Autism means “self” from its Greek root “autos.”  So autism is generally defined as
self concerned state or withdrawn or independent state. Autism occurs at the ration of 4:10000 births. The above ration indicates that it is not a common psychological disorder but a rare condition. Boys are more prone to autism than girls. The condition is associated with brain disorder that establishes itself in the early years of life; as early as 12 to 18 months. Even if it should elude by this age, it cannot be missed out at the age of three. This disturbs the normal life of the individual who bears this condition. They will not be able to relate to the outside world in a normal fashion and will have communication problems and will also exhibit social withdrawal.

Interestingly this brain disorder or spectrum disorder is linked to immunologic aspects, metabolic factors, brain abnormalities such as cerebral dysgenesis, microcephaly and macrocephaly. Though the condition can be easily diagnosed, its causes still elude the specialists. Some of the theories hold genetics as the reason and some relate it to environmental aspects tied with metabolic issues.

Autistic behavior is often observed by parents who notice the condition by the non responsive behavior of the child. Affected children often exhibit early development process up until two and half to three years. After this age, they exhibit problems relating to social response faculties and speech development.

Symptoms of autism are easily observable and the symptoms include stereotyped movements, bizarre behavior, self occupying movements. Autistic babies during infancy do not cuddle like normal babies. Autistic individuals also face problems with verbal and non verbal communications, expressions gestures, body language and emotions. They will be withdrawn individuals and will interact very little with the society if at all any interaction is there as they prefer to be alone. They will not respond to verbal cues. Speech defects often accompany conditions such as echolalia. They will score very low in their imagination and abstraction skills. Abstraction skills and imagination skills are essential for babies to relate to toys and derive pleasure out of it. As autistic babies do not possess these skills they do not derive any pleasure playing with toys. Though their sense organs of speech and hearing should function physiologically correctly, some of the autistic individuals remain mute and deaf. Symptoms vary from individual to individual and all symptoms are not exhibited by all autistic individuals.

As a brain disorder, autism renders low IQ results and is normally in subnormal range. Ironically, 25% of the autistic children exhibit some specific area excellence such as problem solving, mimicking, mathematics, memorizing, science etc and are above average.

Autism though it establishes itself in early infancy, it persists at a later stages of life too including adolescence and adulthood. However, we can come across well adapted and highly successful adults in the society in spite of the challenges they face in terms of interpersonal skills and social response patterns. There will be no physiological evidence or anything noticeable in their physical appearance so one has to relate with them to know that they are autistic. Autistic individuals cannot read and interpret the emotions of the others; this hinders their ability to build on any friendship which explains their aloofness. They also do not understand ‘fear’ – this often leads to self destructive behavior as they rarely associate pain and corresponding actions. This makes them dependent on others and have to be monitored closely at all times.