Autism :: Papers

AutismAutism or PPD (pervasive developmental put out) is defined by the Columbia cyclopaedia as a rare neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by the inability to tinge to and perceive the environment in a realistic adult malener. The onset of the disorder is in infancy or early childhood, generally before the climb on of thirty months, and males are affected four times as ofttimes as females. Symptoms take on impairment in social interaction, fixation on inanimate objects, inability to communicate modal(prenominal)ly, and resistance to changes in daily casual (Anthes, 1997). Characteristics of AutismDiagnosing Autism is based on four characteristics difficulty with langu season, abnormal responses to sensorial stimuli, resistance to change and difficulty with social interaction. ?Other characteristics of autism whitethorn include making the same repetitive motion for hours, repeating a pass away or phrase, inability to hold a conversation, practicing unusual play pat terns, and intense sensitivity to sound and touch? (Riccio, 1999). Autistics can exhibit any combination of these characteristics in any degree. That is why autism is referred to as a ?spectrum? disorder, because at unrivalled end of the disorder a child whitethorn be inflicted with nigh symptoms, while at the opposite end a child may be inflicted with multiple symptoms with many areas in between. Children who display few symptoms may be characterized as ?mildly ill?.Early signs of Autism may pop in the freshman months of life. Autistic infants tend to stray away from some other people, avoiding touch and become limp or stiff when picked up or help. Autistic children don?t reach maturation as flying as normal children. A normal child will gunpoint to objects or smile when seeing their mother before the end of their commencement exercise year, but children with autism develop this behavior much later. These symptoms may go on unnoticed by parents or doctors in infan cy, but by the age of two to three it is clear that something is wrong. History of AutismIn 1943, a man by the name of Leo Kanner formally identified autism he denominate the disorder ?autistic disturbance of affective contact? (?Autism Web? n.d.). Autism was first described in America, officially, in 1980 with the publication of DSMIII (Tanguay, Robertson, Derrick, 1980). There was much confusion, both(prenominal) before and after Kanners description, regarding the continuity of autism with schizophrenia and other then-recognized forms of psychosis (Lippcott/Williams & Wilkins, 1999). Kanner noticed that autistic infants had a reverse pattern typically observed in normal infants.