Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a broad group of development disorders, which is united by the presence of qualitative disorders of social interaction, communication, as well as the repeated stereotypical nature of behavior and interests.
Symptoms should be visible until the child reaches the age of three years. Autism is a clinical diagnosis, i.e. it is made only Based on observation of a child's behavior. The spectrum of autism is very wide. Before you may be a child with severe intellectual disability or, conversely, with high cognitive abilities, up to lightness.
There may be a severe delay in the speech development, or, conversely, speech will not be age-appropriate and rich. These cases of social interaction and communication disorders are combined. And the causes and pathogenic mechanisms can be different.
Thus, for example, more than 200 genes are known, changes in which are associated with the development of autism. Obsessive-compulsive disorder! The forecast of development, and success of social adaptation is ambiguous. In general, given the width of the spectrum of autism disorders, it is very difficult to imagine a median child with this disease. The prognosis will depend on what form of autism we are dealing with.
According to research, the prognosis for people with autism and intellectual disability is worse than for people with intellectual disability, such as Down syndrome. Similarly, if we talk about highly functional autists — people with normal intelligence - their ability to realize (live independently, get a profession, work) is worse than that of their Neurotypical peers. To understand why this happens, let's consider in detail what social interaction and communication are, and how they are violated in autism. Social interaction is any action of a person based on a social motive. For example, the smile that you used to get the person to come you.
Visual contact: During the conversation, we look at each other and assess whether the person understands us and is interested in what we say. A desire to share some of our good and bad experiences. It would not be an exaggeration to say that any of our behavior has a social dimension to some extent. Let's imagine the situation: the child goes to school, there he tries to get a good evaluation because he wants to be praised by his parents. At the heart of his actions is a social motive: he does it to be recognized by another person, not because the number 5 is more beautiful than the number 2. This is what happens normally. This is also the case with other developmental disorders that are not accompanied by symptoms of autism. In children with autism, these forms of behavior are disturbed at an early age.
The violations lead to the fact that the child will be deprived of the forms of education from an early age which consist in the transfer of experience during communication. One of the early signs of autism is the impairment of the ability to trace the look of another person. The child does not understand where the other person is looking, and therefore does not understand what has caught his or her attention, what is interesting and what is dangerous, and what his or her mother is talking about. Imagine the usual situation: Mom comments on what she sees: "Here comes the dog, here comes the cat, here comes the plane".
She does it knowing that the child's attention is directed to the same place as her attention that they are looking at the same thing. Now imagine that the child is unable to trace her eyes, does not use this information at all. First, there will be no connection between what the child sees, and what they are told. One thing is that this is already a significant factor in delaying speech development. Another example is when a child points fingers at what has caught his or her attention. It's the ability to direct the other person's attention to what you need. The lack of these skills in a child of 1.5 years is a very serious cause for concern.