Autism - What it's and What it Isn't
With the terms 'autism' and 'Autistic Spectrum Disorder' being thrown around thus much lately many folks are confused concerning what specifically autism is. With the rising incidence of autism, it is vital for the overall public, and especially those with autistic individuals in their lives, to perceive this spectrum of disorders and the way it affects people.
Autism could be a developmental disability, which suggests that it's a incapacity which begins to gift itself in childhood and which lasts throughout life. Alternative developmental incapacity diagnoses that are related to autism, like Aspergers Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified, are said to exist on the Autistic Spectrum, which makes autism a spectrum disorder. This means that there are a spectrum of symptoms and degrees to which the symptoms will manifest, but that each one of these diagnoses are autism. Individuals with a High-Functioning Autism diagnosis therefore have the identical symptoms as lower functioning autistics, but they vary in severity.
At its root autism could be a non-typical sort of perception and cognition. An autistic perceives the planet differently than a non-autistic, or neurotypical. This suggests that sound, sight, style, touch, and smell are experienced differently by autistics than neurotypicals. The senses will be amplified, dampened, or simply plain different. Because of this an autistic person may be overwhelmed or mildly repulsed by sure sorts of sensory input and may be drawn to others. A good example of this is able to be an autistic kid at a fireworks show - the sudden loud noises synched with the explosive visual displays can send the child into a severe meltdown, as a result of he cannot deal with the approach that the sensory input affects him. Another example would be that it's a common (however by no suggests that universal) trait for older autistics to enjoy particularly spicy foods, or to have otherwise uncommon tastes in foods.
This affectation of sensory perception may be a part of the cognitive alterations at the basis of autism. Another half of this can be the manner that thought patterns are affected. Autistics usually describe thinking in pictures, or even matrices of knowledge, rather than linear strings of information like words. Completely different lines of thought will be experienced as interactions between these pictures. This is half of the explanation that verbal autistics usually communicate significantly well with every other.
These are the basic foundations of autism, and of course they exist to totally different degrees and will cause different traits in several people, but it's important to recollect that this, and not the behaviors or alternative observable symptoms, is what autism is.
Author Resource:
Celestine Hayes has been writing articles online for nearly 2 years now. Not only does this author specialize in Developmental Disabilities, you can also check out latest website about
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