How is autism characterized?

Answer 1

autism is characterized by a person having deficits in 3 core areas: social skills, speech, and behaviors.

what symptoms are shown by each person are as different as people are themselves. you would be hard put to find 2 people who display the exact same characteristics.

some of them in the social category are:

lack of eye contact

being indifferent to other people being present

not interacting with others

not knowing how to carry on a back and forth conversation

(in a child) not sharing their interest of something with others

some in the speech category are:

lack of speech or developing speech entirely

large delay in speech compared to age appropriate levels

disorganized speech

echoing what they have heard and not using spontaneious speech

not understanding speech (for example my son could not grasp on to the fact that objects and things had names. i could tell him to go get his cup and he could have some milk... he didnt know what a cup was or what milk was... but he would try to get it himself and new he needed the cup and would pull the milk out of the fridge...)

and some in the behavior category are:

tantrums with no apparent reason or cause

hand or arm flapping

spinning self or objects

lining objects up

strict adherance to routine (not able to tolerate changes)

obession with one topic or category

laughing for no apparent reason or cause

those are just a few... autism can show itself in many many different ways.