Autism: What Is Autism and Symptom Checklist

by wildcherry on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 | Health, Life

Autism refers to a spectrum of disorders at which the child presents with an impairment in social interaction skills, communication skills and demonstrates restricted or repetitive stereotypical kind behaviours. Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects the simple ability to understand what he / she sees, hears and senses resulting in headaches in social interaction, communication skills (and use of language) and multiple behaviour and interests.

Children with ASD do not follow the typical trends of child development and their behaviors can range for mild to severe. Signs of Autism Early identification of Autism is ideal as early intervention and treatment has been directly linked with the best outcomes for children with autism. Babies are sociable beings. From early in life they turn towards familiar voices, gaze at their parents, smile and are comforted by hugs and touch.

Many young children with autism experience difficulties in developing these skills and early forms of two-way interactions. The causes of Autism are unclear however research supports a genetic component and then a disruption in normal brain development. There may be multiple factors or causes that lead to autism and only research will find these answers. Twin and family studies have suggested an underlying genetic vulnerability to autism and other studies have shown that a contributing cause for autism may be abnormal brain development beginning in the infant’s first year of life.

Here is an autism symptoms checklist presenting the most common autism symptoms to small children and babies:

- inappropriate verbal and non-verbal communication skills;

- strong resistance to environmental and behavioral change (autistic children don’t let people interfere with their routine, engaging in repetitive, stereotype behaviors and activities; they also have low adaptability to new situations);

- hyper-activity or hypo-activity (autistic children usually have extreme behaviors; they are either very active, being difficult to calm down, or passive, avoiding any interactions and showing little responsiveness to stimuli);

- inability to understand and act in the presence of danger (autistic children usually don’t seem to be aware of potential dangers);

- poor imitational skills (inability of imitating simple gestures or facial expressions);

- low responsiveness to the hearing of their own name;

- difficulties in social interactions, avoidance of making eye contact with people;

- the tendency of engaging in activities and behaviors that may result in self-harm (banging their heads against their cribs, excessively scratching their skin);

- poor emphatic skills (children with autism experience difficulties in relating with other people; they also can’t express their compassion or understanding to people in distress).

These autism symptoms presented above are the most common signs of abnormalities that children with the disorder might present and it is very important to spot them as soon as possible.

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