Autism Spectrum Disorder Essays - Psychiatry, Psychiatric Diagnosis

Autism Spectrum Disorder Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a disorder of brain development. The article, European Child Adolescent Psychiatry, focuses on the difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors that people with autism suffer. There are three different types of Autism Spectrum Disorders: Autistic Disorder, Asperger Syndrome, and Pervasive Development Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. Autism tends to start showing around the ages of 2 and 3 or as early as 18 months. It is estimated that 1 in 68 children will have autism in the United States.; that being 1 in 42 boys and 1 in 189 girls. Social challenges are one of the biggest difficulties autistic people will suffer from. As new born babies grow, they start to become social by nature. For example, they engage with other faces, look towards sounds they hear around them, or grasp a finger. On the other hand, children who are born with autism have trouble with these specific things. Symptoms will start to show in an infant by 8 to 10 months of age. They won't respond to their name, their interest in people will reduce, and their babbling will delay. From 12 to 36 months, children with autism will have difficulty playing social games and would rather play alone. This can result with emotions of anger and discomfort from the child. Autistic children have a hard time controlling their emotions. When they don't get what they want, their behavior can seem to be very uncontrollable because they start to self harm such as: head banging, hair pulling, or self-biting. Speech delay is another challenge this article mentions that autistic people suffer from. Some common things that children by the age of 3 do is babbling, know how to say a word or two, look the direction when their name is said, point to objects they want. When they are given something they don't like, they know how to show it or say "no." Children with autism can't seem to do these things. Therapy does tend to help an autistic person learn to use spoken language and communicate. Pictures, sign language, and word processors are some examples of how autistic children and adults learn their communication skills. When their language does start to develop, they may use speech in unusual ways. For instance, saying a sentence that doesn't make sense or repeating the same word/ phrase over and over again. The third symptom autistic people suffer from is repetitive behaviors. Hand-flipping, rocking, and jumping are some common repetitive behaviors. They like things a certain way so they'll rearrange objects to their likings. When they play with toys, some will spend most of the time lining them up in a specific way instead of actually playing with them. Some have the same daily routine and they tend to feel anxiety or stressed if something is out of order. Repetitive behaviors can also result in unusual obsessions. As autistic children grow older or into adults, they start to gain interest in numbers, symbols, dates or science topics. Since this is a disorder one of my family members suffers from, I wanted to bring more awareness to the topic. People who suffer from autism are not different, they are special in their own unique way. The three main points I will be focusing on in my speech are the difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors that people with autism suffer. These three main points relate to my thesis because they give insight on what it is like to have autism. I can find more qualified research about this disorder by reading articles or journals about test being done on those who suffer from autism.