Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders

Autism is a developmental disability, neurobiological in nature, that affects a person's ability to communicate, understand language, play, and interact with others. Autism is a behavioral syndrome, which means that its definition is based on patterns of behaviors that a person exhibits. Autism is not an illness or a disease.

  Autism spectrum disorders, range from a severe form, called autistic disorder, to a milder form, Asperger syndrome. If a child has symptoms of either of these disorders, but does not meet the specific criteria for either, the diagnosis is called pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). Other rare, very severe disorders that are included in with Pervasive Developmental Disorders are Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized primarily by developmental difficulties in verbal and nonverbal communication, social relatedness, and leisure and play activities. All individuals with ASD experience substantial problems with social interactions.

In addition, people with ASD often exhibit unusual, repetitive, and perseverative movements (including stereotyped and self-stimulatory behaviors), resistance to changes in routines and in other features of their environments, apparent oversensitivity or undersensitivity to specific kinds of stimulation, and extreme tantrums, aggression or other forms of acting out behavior.

It is also observed that individuals with ASD have uneven patterns of skill development. Some people display superior abilities in particular areas (such as music, mechanics, and arithmetic calculations), while other areas show significant delay. Some children seem to develop normally for a couple of years and then regress; for example, they may lose language skills after developing a small vocabulary. Others may be affected from birth, but in such subtle ways that diagnosis is delayed.

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