Autism
Introduction
Autism is a mental disorder wherein a person having this particular disorder displays a delay in social interaction, language and symbolic play. Individuals with autism have great difference in terms of skills, behaviors and sensory system from normal people. Stimulations like sounds, vision and touch have a huge effect on a person with autism. Moreover, the social development of individuals with autism begins in the early life. Infants or children having this particular disorder find it harder to interact and engage in normal activities. Usually autistic infants do not interact with others, them also seldom cries and they lack eye contact. Children having this disorder manifests passiveness, enjoys being alone and resist attention. The characteristics of autism includes oversensitivity and underreactivity to different sensory modalities such as touch, movement, sights, sounds and delays in speech, language and motor skills which usually leads to difficulty to cope up with the academics. Individuals exhibiting autism usually finds it hard to deal with the academics because of the difficulty to understand simple instructions and interaction with other people. (, 2006) In addition children having autism lacks the ability and capacity to view things from the outlook of another individual. (, , 1985)
This paper examines the behavioral effects of autism on the physiology and biology of sensory modalities.
Over the past years, the theory of mind has been the basis for understanding the important features of autism. A number of studies have given focus on the importance of the theory of mind hypothesis especially in explanation of the central inadequacy in the social and language skills of individuals with autism. On the other hand, not all symptoms of autism can be interpreted using this particular framework such as deficits in executive functions and repetitive behaviors. Autism is a complicated disorder that surrounds different areas of impairment which cannot be interpreted under the theory of mind hypothesis. (, 1999)
Autism begins at the tender age of infants, and on earlier studies, it has shown that the size of the brain has a great association with autism. a person with autism have no difference in the physical aspect with normal persons, however studies have found out that an enlarged brain size are associated with autism although the impacts are still unknown. (, , and , 2001) Moreover, according to (2004) recent studies that give emphasis on the brains of autistic children that are developing have shown interesting results, in which there are differences from the normal developing brain. Moreover, a number of studies have shown that autistic children between the ages of two to four have bigger brain volumes than normal children of those age range, however when the children reached the age six or seven the difference on the volume of the brain have disappeared and because of that findings and formed the hypothesis that the overgrowth on the brains of the children must have occurred prior to the appearance of the characteristics of autism. In another study of , it has shown that at birth the size of the head of autistic children are smaller compare to normal children, however when they reach 6-14 months, the size of their head increased to the 84th percentile, the increase in the size of the head is associated with the increase in the volume of the gray and white matter regions of the brain. The study suggested that individuals with autism the uncontrolled growth of the brain takes place on the first year of life, and the late development of speech, repetitive behaviors and severe autistic symptoms are also associated with the increased brain size. Apart from the abnormal enlargement on the size and volume of the infant’s brain, there are also environmental factors that may contribute to the acquisition of autism. In the study of (2000), the researchers found out using the thalidomide, , and studies that early injury or trauma during embryogenesis that usually involves the brain-stem structures may be related to the development of autism spectrum disorder.
According to (1973), autism is usually accompanied with major sensory deficiencies which include blindness and deafness. Children with autism can be completely or partially blind which can trigger disturbing behavior that is usually inked to mannerisms that is called blindisms. Blindisms include manneristic motioning of the hands in front of the face; moreover, autism has been related to the visual impairment known as retrolental fibroplasias. Deafness is always associated with autism due to the delay of speech acquisition; symptoms include disturbing patterns of motion and the possibility to over-react and under-react to auditory stimulations. Aside from deafness and blindness, children with autism can also acquire seizure disorders as they grow older, and therefore making epilepsy and autism coexist in an individual.
One of the severe symptoms of autism is the impairment of an individual’s sensory functions and one of those is the vision. According to and (2002), the following characteristics are manifested to children that have an autism spectrum disorder and also visual impairments:
Impairments in Communication
- The language is developed very slowly and in severe cases it does not develop at all.
- There is a great difficulty breaking the pattern of involuntary repetition of words which often leads to patterns of verbal preservation with outlandish meanings.
- Non-conventional behaviors such as gestures are used as form of communication.
- The child may be overly active or passive
Impairments in Social Interactions
- The child does not familiarize toward sounds.
- His or her social interests’ id restricted.
- Play repetitively
- Too reserved behavior of the child and redirection of activities can be a problem.
- The child prefers to be alone than to interact with others.
- Lack the ability of understanding another person’s emotions.
Individuals with autism have impairments with regards to attention to people and socially relevant stimulus, and due to the fact that the important stimulus in social interaction is physically complicated it is suggested that the inadequacy in the sensory processing of complicated stimuli aids in the abnormal attention and language of autistic individuals. In the study of , children with autism that exhibits high-functioning verbal ability has shown irrelevant abnormalities in the sensory processing of the spectral characteristics of a simple sound, complex sound or a vowel, however, their reluctant familiarization was discriminately impaired to the changes in the vowel but not in the changes on simple and complex sounds, which means that the damage on the auditory processing of vowels takes place further than the stage of sensory processing, and that the deficiency in familiarizing the changes in vowels might be possible on the quality of speechness in the sound stimuli. And if such deficit occurs during infancy, it deeply jeopardizes the development of the verbal and nonverbal communication skills of children with autism. (, , , , and , 2003)
Although these individuals may have a hard time in communicating with other individuals verbally or non-verbally, because of the difficulty in orientation with some of the words that usually leads to lower language ability. However, lower language ability does not mean these individuals cannot perform specific functions. In the study conducted by , and (2005) the researchers evaluated the relationship of executive dysfunction to the language ability in children with autism. The study have revealed that children with autism are less developed compared to normal children in terms of their language skills however, there is no association between language ability and the executive performance which includes the working memory, working memory and inhibitory control and planning. On the other hand, normal children used in the sample have revealed that language ability and executive performance is correlated. The authors have suggested that the executive dysfunction in autism does not have a direct relationship with the impairment in language but rather the failure to use language for self-regulation. In addition, the study of have shown that the memory of patients having autism spectrum disorder are more accurate compare to normal individuals on particular conditions, which means that even though individuals with ASD are way behind the normal persons there are instances that they perform better than normal individuals. (, , , . 1999)
As mentioned earlier, individuals with autism exhibit echolalia (involuntary repetition of words), it is one of the common symptoms of autism especially among pre-school children. Autistic Echolalia reflects an idea for responding to verbal input which individuals with autism do not comprehend. Therefore, once an autistic person or child adopts the meaning of the verbal stimulus, echolalic response to that particular stimulus disappears, and in the study of , determined that total and oral communication is an effective measure in teaching basic vocal language skills, receptive and expressive gestural labels to young children with autistic echolalia as well as mute and retarded children. ( and , 1983)
Difficulty in communication is a problem of autistic individuals that leads to a limited interaction to people, and in severe cases no interaction at all. And in order to prevent children with disabilities including those with autism from feeling isolated, these children are enrolled in preschools that also has children without disabilities. In the research of , it revealed that peer-mediated interventions have enhanced the social interaction of children with autism especially during play, peer-mediated intervention have raised the level of interaction between children with autism and without autism. (, , and , 1992)
As time goes by, a number of approaches and treatments for autism have sprouted. And a number of interventions and therapies have appeared in publications and media, such approaches include; holding therapy, music therapy, facilitated communication auditory integration and many more. (, 1993) But according to (2000) a successful program for treatment of autism must have the following components:
· A combined strategy on behavior orientation and developmental and educational approach that is significant to the profile, skills and deficit’s of a child.
· Recognizing the importance of structured teaching.
· An emphasis on the development and enhancement of the social communication and interaction with other individuals.
· Stress on improving the skills in order to efficiently reduce the difficult and sometimes disruptive behavior.
· Understanding the significance of rituals and obsessions as a fundamental cause of problems in behaviors.
· Treatment that involves the family rather than the child alone.
· Approaches that can be used without sacrificing a large amount of time and money.
And according to , and (2003) a successful approach or intervention in individuals with autism can have the following outcomes: Normal usage of the verbal language, some use of verbal language in a different purpose, the functional usage of language such as making requests, the capacity to use an alternative form of communication and the people surrounding the individual are able to understand better the unusual communication in order to address his or her needs efficiently.
Autism is a disorder that affects almost all the sensory modalities of an individual that is affected, he or she can either be blind, deaf, have speech impairments, and even seizures. A number of treatments and studies have come out in different publications and media, in order to address this disorder, an early diagnosis of the disorder must be done so that the progress of the disorder could be pre-empted.
References:
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