Autism Spectrum Disorder

Rain Man

Psychology 40S

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism is a neurodevelopment syndrome which is displayed in a person by difficulties in social environment, a lack of, or inexistent communication skills, or unusual restricted and repetitive behaviours. Autism can be detected in infancy or the first three years of life. A young child growing up with autism may not communicate with words but be able to recite difficult passages or say the alphabet before other kids of his or her age. These kids may seem to be very gifted at the ages when social skills are not expected but once the children around them become for socially gifted while the one with autism does not it becomes apparent and an easy diagnosis for even the child’s school mates to make. Kids around them may avoid the ‘weird’ kid and not want to play with them, and when they describe their behaviour to any adult the connection is not a challenging one to make. These kids with autism do not wish to be with others when they are happy, or even show interest in things a child of that age would. Instead the child may be distracted by visually pleasing things or patterns and develop repetitive hand and finger movements.

Autism is different from other disorders because no two people have the same profile of the disorder. This is called heterogeneous condition which means that no two cases are identical. While nothing is the same when it comes to autism, the varying cases of the disorder can be categorized into core domains which are consistent over time, while specific behaviours may change with time. For example, a child with autism who clicks their teeth one year may rub their hands the next. These mechanisms can be reactions to things that agitate them or make them anxious. As a child with autism will fixate on certain things like circles at a young age but when they get older the topics of their obsession become specific and much more powerful over their actions. They might be infatuated with bugs for a year and then cars the next and one of the positive aspects of this disorder is that they love to learn about their current topic and they become experts at them. This can happen to the point where, if the obsession is a thing like economics, they might find and be successful at a job in that field in the future. The downside of autism at this age of about four to eight is that they have extreme difficulty carrying out conversations and making eye contact (Lord).