What are the characteristics of children suffering from Autism?
There are many common patterns of characteristics noticed in children with Autism. It is not necessary that all children suffering from Autism would exhibit exactly the same characteristics. I have divided this article in to two parts due to its length and extensive data. The first part is as follows:
Physical Characteristics: Children with autism are usually normal looking with very few or no physical signs indicating autism. Some of the children may have ear malformations and lateralization is under developed for the age and usually they are ambidextrous.
Behavioral Characteristics: There are major behavioral issues in many children with autism. Some of the known behavioral characteristics are:
Lack of social relatedness: A child with autism may not smile at parents or show any kind of affection (hugging, kissing, calling out, inclination to be picked up and taken in arms) or want for parents and other people around. Eye contact is very poorly developed and usually they look down or in the opposite direction while communicating. Ability to make friends is nearly absent till a very later age. I have encountered children with autism sitting for hours together but not a word of communication be it verbal or nonverbal. It often looks like other children do not exist for the autistic child. They seem to be self occupied and happy in their own world.
Play patterns: They show strong attachment to routines and a change in the routine is not welcomed. Play patters are not age appropriate and they resort to repetitive and isolated play rather than group or constructive play. For e.g. lining up objects, playing with one specific part of a toy rather than the whole, starring at objects, over attachment to one toy or insignificant object, rotating or twisting objects, inability to follow rules and boundaries of games, etc
Cognitive skills: many children with autism respond and relate more quickly to visual spatial skills than verbal language, for e.g. children with autism understand visual images (picture of a toilet) more than verbal commands (instructions to go to the toilet). One notable feature noticed in many children with autism is inability to understand feelings or emotions of others around them, thus making it difficult for them to engage in social reciprocation, for e.g. If you tell a autistic child that you have hurt your head he or she may laugh or have no response.
Language difficulties: there is a myth that autistic children do not speak because of lack of motivation or reluctance to speak. Many a times the child appears non verbal but often babbles words and reproduces them exactly the correct way confusing the parent about the ability to speak and this is often misinterpreted as lack of motivation to speak. Language delay and deviance is one the most striking feature of autism. Autistic children have trouble putting words together and making a logical and coherent sentence even if they have excellent word vocabulary, for e.g. if you ask an autistic child “Did you have your breakfast?”, many of them would repeat the question “Did you have your breakfast?” instead of giving a “yes or no” answer.
Non-verbal language is also impaired but is usually better than verbal language. Echolalia is a prominent feature and autistic children often repeat words, phrases, sentences with or without context. For e.g.: “Bathroom, Bathroom Bathroom”. One of the cases that I handled had this peculiar behavior of picking up selective words and then reproducing them in the form of a poem. For e.g. if I said the school bell will ring in sometime, so the child said “Ding dong bell kitty in the well, ding dong bell”
Pronoun reversals like “You want the ice cream” instead of “I want the ice cream” are often seen. Articulation errors like “titu for tissue”, “twim for swim” etc are common. They often develop a different voice tone and rhythm to communicate and that distinguishes them from other children.
I will continue with this article in my next write up FAQ’s on autism 2, part II.
Aditi Chaudhary
