What is Autism?

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what autism and autism spectrum disorders actually are. It’s understandable, because persons on the autism spectrum can be so individually different. Some cannot talk. Some talk early. Some are highly intelligent; others have some degree of mental retardation. Some have extreme sensory issues and some don’t. Some have motor planning problems, and some are very athletic. And the list goes on. So with all of these differences between individuals, what do these people have in common? Regardless of diagnosis - Asperger’s Syndrome, PDD, PDD-NOS, Autism or any other autism spectrum disorder, what all persons with autism spectrum disorders seem to have in common is their core deficit. Autism spectrum disorders arise from a neurological condition; a weakened area that seems to be located somewhere along the pathway that runs from the prefrontal cortex to the hippocampus of the brain. No one yet knows definitively what causes this condition. Individuals on the autism spectrum seem to have this weakened pathway, which results in the following core deficits: Deficits in: comparative thought and interpretation, flexibility and adaptability to change, creative thought, decision-making, judgment, and memory of past positive feelings about events. In typical individuals, this pathway creates a hierarchy of comparison, and interprets everything we see, hear, do and feel. It compares one thing to another, compares past to present situations, compares how we felt before to now, separates important from the unimportant, and then uses all of that information to judge situations and come up with with unique solutions. Typical people spend most of the day using this part of their brain effortlessly, sailing through thousands of little moment-to-moment decisions with ease. But for a person on the autism spectrum, all of those tiny moment to moment decisions can be quite difficult and often scary. Because of the weakened brain pathway, individuals on the autism spectrum have a limited ability to compare, interpret and solve new situations. As a result, they remain tied to using solutions they already know, and have limited ability to deal with new or changing situations. Decision-making and judgment abilites that most of us take for granted, such deciding which way to go to the store today, interpreting and understanding the actions of other people, or even figuring out how near or far to walk next to someone often cause confusion and fear in a person with an autism spectrum disorder. As a result, the world often seems chaotic and scary to individuals on the spectrum, and other people seem to act in abrupt and unexpected ways that are just impossible for them to understand. To try to control some of this chaos and keep things predictable, autistic individuals tend to rely heavily on formulas and repetitive sequences to get through their day. These sequences and formulas rely on a different part of the brain that usually functions quite well in persons on the autism spectrum. It’s the area of the brain that runs our “red = stop, green = go”, “2+2=4″ type thinking - very formulaic, very predictable, and very absolute thought. Unfortunately, this area of the brain is unable to compare, interpret, adapt, or see possiblities. Of course when faced with new or changing situations, when most formulas won’t work, persons on the spectrum often fall apart, out of fear of the unknown. Most of the tantrums, escape, or aggressive behaviors that we see at these times are usually “fight or flight” responses, motivated out of fear, not from being stubborn, manipulative or “bad”. One of the reasons Relationship Development Intervention is effective is because it addresses this pathway directly, by using different activities to exercise and strengthen it, much like what we do for other persons with weak or damaged brain pathways, such as persons with stroke or head injury, etc. You can find out more about Dr Gutstein and Sheely’s work via rdiconnect. Until recently, trying to understand autism has been very confusing - it’s only been explained as a series of seeminly unrelated symptoms. But once one understands the core deficit - the brain pathway that ties all those seeminly scattered symptoms together into one cohesive piece, autism becomes much easier to understand, and as a result more easily targeted and treated. Copyright 2006, Sandra Sinclair

About the Author

Sandra Sinclair is a parent of a child with PDD-NOS. Sandra assists parents of children with autism spectrum disorders to create a life that they love - life by design, not demands - through her 6-step program. She is also author of Newly Diagnosed Autism Spectrum - A free mini-course with 7 clear steps you can take to help your child with Aspergers, Autism, PDD-NOS, and other autism spectrum disorders. http://www.autismvoice.com/blog/7SteAutism Signs looks to help children and parents of the dreaded syndrome known as Autism. Autism is the most common condition in a group of developmental disorders known as the autism spectrum disorders that effects children and adults like. With this site, we plan to educate the public about the misconceptions of the the disorder.

Managing Tantrums In Autism Spectrum Disorders When Consistency

When dealing with tantrums and difficult behaviors in autism spectrum disorders, using behavioral approaches alone can sometimes fail. What is the missing piece to managing these behaviors that a behavioral approach alone may not address?

To start, we need to look at the reasons for behavior. According to behavioral approaches, most of the behavior we see results from one of three reasons: a request, seeking attention, or a sensory reason. Let’s look deeper at these three reasons for behavior and the ways we currently handle them.

Handling a request is fairly straightforward. To put it very simply, a request is usually something externally controlled by both reinforcing appropriate requests and not reinforcing inappropriate ones, such as a tantrum.

For negative attention-seeking behaviors, we can eliminate the behavior by not giving the negative behavior attention and give attention for desired behavior - very straightforward, and again, usually externally controlled.

The sensory reasons arise from both the external and internal events that a child experiences through the five senses, and may or may not be externally controlled. In all of these situations, our internal responses - our feelings and thoughts about events fire us into action. In stressful situations, the resulting “knee jerk” reactions are often difficult to manage with a purely behavioral approach for a few reasons:

1. Thoughts and feelings are often lightning-fast, internally-controlled events, therefore difficult to manage through external behavioral modifications.

2. Thoughts and feelings can’t be measured, and as a result, behavioral approaches simply don’t address them. It doesn’t mean that these things don t exist or aren’t important. It just means that they’re left out of the equation.

3. Behavioral approaches address the cause and consequence of behaviors the beginning and the end. But internal responses (i.e. thoughts and feelings) happen in the moments between the cause and the consequence. By not dealing with thoughts, feelings and solutions at these moments, we leave a child to figure out solutions on his or her own.

4. Children on the autism spectrum have a limited ability to adapt to new or changing situations, solve problems, compare past to present, or see possibilities. Because of this, if a child never learns how to think through a challenging situation during the emotional moments, when faced with it again, the same behavior will probably repeat itself, no matter what the consequence, or how many times they’ve been through it before.

This situation calls for tools to deal with overwhelming thoughts, feelings and strategies in the moment before the tantrum, not just consequences after.

In the book The Explosive Child, Ross Greene talks about this situation. This book applies to any disorders that have limitations in problem solving and executive thought, including all PDDs, such as Asperger’s Syndrome, PDD-NOS, and all autism spectrum disorders. ADD, ADHD, and various other developmental disabilities also share these problem-solving / executive thought issues and can benefit from using this approach, according to Dr. Greene.

In the book, first we pick our battles carefully, and then talk through our thought process out loud. This way our children can hear us think through situations before tantrums. This also creates a memory of how they triumphed in the situation without resorting to negative behaviors.

Progress is made in small increments, but as time goes on, tantrums should decrease, and you can even start to ask your child to contribute ideas about solving problems during those emotional moments. In doing this, you help your child learn how to solve problems and become confident about handling new, changing, or challenging situations. You’ll combine the best of all worlds, to the benefit of your child.

About the Author: Sandra Sinclair is a parent of a child with PDD-NOS. Sandra assists parents of children with autism spectrum disorders to create a life that they love - life by design, not demands - through her 6-step program. She is also author of Newly Diagnosed Autism Spectrum - A free mini-course with 7 clear steps you can take to help your child with Aspergers, Autism, PDD-NOS, and other autism spectrum disorders. http://www.autismvoice.com/blog/7StepstoHelpChildrenwithAutism

Autism Signs looks to help children and parents of the dreaded syndrome known as Autism. Autism is the most common condition in a group of developmental disorders known as the autism spectrum disorders that effects children and adults like. With this site, we plan to educate the public about the misconceptions of the the disorder.

DSM-IV For Aspergers Disorder Criteria Made Simple

A. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

(1) marked impairment in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction.
(2) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level.
(3) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (eg., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people).
(4) lack of social or emotional reciprocity.

B. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities as manifested by at least one of the following:
(1) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus.
(2) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, non-functional routines or rituals.
(3) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (eg.,hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
(4) persistent preoccupation with parts or objects.

C. The disturbance causes clinically significant general delay in language (eg., single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years).

D. There is no clinically delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.

E. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia.

The above is the criteria that is given in the DISM IV which is what doctors use to diagnose Aspergers Disorder and other related disorders. Im going to give a more informal description in hopes that parents can more easily decide if they should seek help. Although you may feel certain that your child exhibits all symptoms of Aspergers Syndrome only a doctor can actually give a diagnosis.
Aspergers Disorder (also referred to as Aspergers Syndrome) is often diagnosed when a child exhibits some of the characteristics of Autism but there is no delay in the development of language skills. Aspergers kids often are very well spoken with large vocabularies.
One of the key characteristics of persons with Aspergers Disorder is their social impairment. They are unable to read social cues or body language. You could stare at the ceiling during the conversation and they would not catch on that you were not listening. There is also a problem understanding the give and take of a conversation. Aspergers persons will talk at you not with you.
Many kids with Aspergers Syndrome have few to no friends. This is not only because of their social impairment but also because of their very focused and narrow interests. They have no desire to talk about anything outside their own interest and are not interested in learning something new. Their interests are obsessive in nature.
Aspergers kids need their lives to be routine and that routine must be adhered to. If there is a change especially a sudden one they are unable to cope. Spontaneity is not that that you find with persons suffering from Aspergers Syndrome.
Aspergers kids often perform repetitive physical movements. Examples are rocking back and forth even when standing and flapping of hands. They will mostly walk on their tip toes rather than flat foot. The repetitive movements are because these kids need self-stimulation (stimming as it is referred to). This can be turning a light switch on and off, flicking a pen or a form of visual stimulation is flicking something very close to their eyes. Whatever the movement it is a stimulation of one or more of their senses and can go on for hours on end.
The joke about giving your child a toy and them playing with the box, very well suits Aspergers kids. They will become fixated on a part of an object and not the object in whole. If they were given a train set they may pick out a part of the tract rather than play with the entire train set. Sometimes the things they become fixated with can be very odd in nature, for example a shoe, a piece of clothing or a spoon.
Aspergers kids can often come across as little professors they are so well spoken. Their language skills are developed at a very early age. Intelligence is rarely an attribute that is under developed in Aspergers kids. This is definitely an asset and encouraging to parents. As children with Aspergers Disorder mature their ability to control and manage the symptoms of their disorder improves greatly. With the new treatments available and if treated at an early age, these children can grow to lead very fulfilling and independent lives. Even though it is better at an early age you are never too old to seek help everyone deserves quality of life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cass Hope is the Mother of a 13 year old child with Asperger’s Syndrome. She is actively involved in programs to help increase public awareness of Asperger’s Syndrome. For more information and the latest news on Asperger’s and related disorders visit:
http://www.aspergers-online.info

Autism Signs is a place to help the parents of children with Autism. Together we can make a difference in the life of our children. The awful fact is that just about 1% of families in America are affected by this condition. Hopefully this website can help.

Where My Son Lives

I watch as my sons eyes glaze over and I know that for a little while at least I have lost him to the splendor of his world. My son suffers from Aspergers Syndrome and it has taken us as parents a long time to accept that there are certain things that my son does that we will never really understand.

When he travels around the house doing what the doctors call stiming he looks at us like we are the strange ones that dont do this that we don not require such activities in order to survive. Stiming is self-stimulation, which can be opening and closing the window blinds for extended periods of time, watching the tap drip or carrying around a shoe. In my sons case it is flicking a soft cloth right in front of his eyes, which is visual stimulation. Sometimes it calms him and other times it gets him all excited but it is as necessary to his existence as air is. When he is stiming he leaves our world and goes into his. I’ve asked him what makes his different and he says in his world he is popular, understood and feels happy. It saddens me that this world cannot offer that to him.
I knew that there was something wrong at a very early age but it took me years to convince the doctors. I was just another mother over reacting to what was perfectly normal. As an infant he was colic and it wasnt only at certain times it was 24hrs a day. The first time I slept through the night was when I purchased a jolly jumper for him and he basically jumped himself to sleep. I curled up around the bottom of him and we stayed there for 5 hrs. To this day sleeping is still a big problem for him.
As my son grew there was more and more strange behavior. He never played with toys or with other children for that matter. He walked on his tiptoe never flat foot. He was always flapping his hands and would spend long hours playing with a pen that made a clicking noise. If he became overly agitated I would put on high-heeled shoes and the clicking sound of the heels on the floor would calm him. As long as he was awake he was either rocking or bouncing. We had to put his high chair up against a wall so he wouldnt tip it over he rocked so hard. Once my son reached the age of 4 his behavior turned aggressive and out of control. It was a nightmare of hospitals and doctors and he became a guinea pig for various medications. Over the course of a few years he was diagnosed with various disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), tourette syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder and Non Verbal Learning Disability (NLD). Finally at the age of 9 he was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome.
Aspergers Syndrome is part of a sub group which is part of a much larger category called Autistic Spectrum Disorders or Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). Aspergers Syndrome (or Aspergers Disorder) is a developmental, neurological disorder characterized by severe impairment in social development, obsessive traits causing repetitive patterns of behavior and very narrow and focused interests. They are usually very clumsy and have awkward movements. Unlike with Autism, children with Aspergers show no delays in the development of language skills. Once we actually knew what was wrong with my son a whole new avenue of opportunity opened up for us. As a mother the first thing I did was research. I spent hours with my nose in a book or staring at the computer screen. The one piece of hope that I found in almost all of my research was that with treatment children with Aspergers can grow up to have fulfilling lives as adults. Of course the earlier they receive treatment the higher the rate of success but my son only started receiving real treatment when he was 11 and we have still seen great improvement.
I know from personal experience that the frustration of trying to find out what is wrong with your child is at a level that only parents who have gone or are going through can understand. It seems like the world is against you as doctors treat you as nothing but paranoid parents looking for a reason to excuse their bad parenting. Of course that is where the blame will always be placed by others that as parents it is YOUR fault. There is no blame when it comes to Aspergers or any other PDD disorder. There has been some research that shows a possible genetic connection but that is still not an excuse for blame. If I could offer any advice it would be to never give up. If one doctor wont help you find another and do research especially on-line. There is excellent advice, support and resources to help you help your child. Saying that you need to mourn for your child probably sounds ridiculous because you have not lost him or her. I advise the mourning as a way of dealing with the fact that that perfect child you always dreamed of having who would be so popular and a star athlete just is not going to happen. That is not to say your child will not accomplish great things but it may not be in the way you had hoped. Once you accept who your child is you will be much better equipped to help him focus on all the special qualities he has. It will never be easy but with treatment programs and a lot of love, the life of an Aspergers child can be one of great joy and fulfillment for him and you the parents.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Are Aspergers and High Functioning Autism the Same Thing?

By Rachel Evans

One of the most common mistakes made about autism is that Asperger’s Syndrome and high functioning autism are the same thing. Many parents struggle with this problem because there is so much information out there that uses the two terms interchangeably. There are many crossover symptoms between Asperger’s Syndrome and high functioning autism which can make it very challenging to tell the difference between the two. Furthermore, many doctors and scientists differ in their definitions of the two disorders.

High functioning autism is an unofficial designation for people who have autism but whose symptoms are not severe. High functioning autistic children have an average or above-average intelligence level and will generally maintain an adequate vocabulary. However their learning comprehension is typically behind other children at the same age. Furthermore, high functioning autistic children will generally not express much emotional detail in their speech, and struggle with interpreting non-verbal cues.

There is no solid line between the diagnosis of low functioning and high functioning autism. Though some doctors use an IQ score as an indicator to help with the diagnosis, the function level of autism is not based on IQ alone. There are also elements of language processing, behavioral elements, and other non-verbal details, which must be considered above and beyond measurable intelligence levels. Furthermore, standard IQ testing is typically inaccurate for autistic children as the testing itself may involve skills with which an autistic child struggles.

Whether high or low functioning, autism will typically present in around the age of two years old with a sudden regression or presentation of autistic symptoms.

On the other hand, Asperger’s Syndrome is a separate autism spectrum disorder. Children with Asperger’s Syndrome struggle with social interactions and restrictions, and tend to have intensely narrow interests in subjects and activities. However, unlike with autism - even high functioning autism - there is no cognitive development or language delay. Though language may be used atypically and motor skills may be clumsy at times, their development is normal.

Asperger’s Syndrome will typically present in children at about the age of three. Brain imaging has shown structural and functional differences within certain brain regions among children without autism spectrum disorders, children with Asperger’s Syndrome, and children who are high functioning autistics.

Children with Asperger’s Syndrome often fail to display empathy in their behaviors. It is social interaction where these children face their deepest challenges. Many struggle or fail to develop friendships, don’t take pleasure in achievements or spontaneous activities with others, lack in emotional and social reciprocity, and have diminished non-verbal communication behaviors such as facial expressions, postures, eye contact, and overall gestures.

However, children with classic autism (even those who are high functioning), Asperger’s Syndrome children will not typically withdraw from other people. In fact, even if they are awkward in their method, they will often approach others and begin a discussion. It is conversation where their struggle may occur, as a discussion for a child with Asperger’s Syndrome may simply consist of a long-winded single-sided speech about something the child truly enjoys, without any need for contribution from the other people present.

Grab your free copy of Rachel Evans’ brand new Autism Newsletter - Overflowing with easy to implement methods to help you and your family find out about high functioning autism and for information on the different autism characteristics please visit The Essential Guide To Autism.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rachel_Evans
http://EzineArticles.com/?Are-Aspergers-and-High-Functioning-Autism-the-Same-Thing?&id=1229039

What is Autism?

About the Author

Managing Tantrums In Autism Spectrum Disorders When Consistency

DSM-IV For Aspergers Disorder Criteria Made Simple

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Where My Son Lives

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Are Aspergers and High Functioning Autism the Same Thing?

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