Autism

AUTISM

The name for a range of similar conditions, including Asperger syndrome, that affect a person’s social interaction, communication, interests and behaviour.

Symptoms present before three years of age, although diagnosis often made after this age. There is no ‘cure’, but speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, educational support and a number of other interventions are available to help children and parents.

• Characterised by difficulties in three areas:

• Communication: Often have speech problems and can have difficulty understanding language. Find it hard to read body language and have a tendency to take things literally.

• Social interaction: Find it hard to understand other people’s emotions and often cannot express their own. Makes interaction difficult. They are not unemotional.

• Social imagination: Find it difficult to imagine what is going to happen next and cannot anticipate danger. Lack a theory of mind and cannot empathise with others.

• Have difficulty interacting in social environments and so find it hard to make new friendships. Obsessive traits often misunderstood and lack of empathy often perceived as uncaring or insensitive.

• Campbell found autistic children are likely to be befriended by unpopular children, who also have difficulty. Implies that autistic children have less opportunity to improve social skills.

• There is much variation in cognitive abilities of autistic children. Some are highly intelligent and thought to be very gifted whereas others are less intelligent.

• Most people with autism have lower than average IQ.

• Baron-Cohen suggests autism results in two distinct differences in cognitive ability: empathy and hypersystemising (perceiving patterns). Suggests they have poor empathy skills but may be good at hypersystemising. So, more suited to science and math-based subjects.

• EXPLANATIONS

• Cognitive explanation: Theory of Mind. This is the ability to recognise and attribute…