by Cameron King

Created on: March 27, 2010   Last Updated: March 28, 2010

Many people don't know what autism is, the effects it has and how it is caused. There are many debates to explain what it is, what it does and how it got started. Here I will answer some of the questions that you may have about Autism/Asperger's syndrome.

Autism is a psychological disorder that is characterized as being a spectrum disorder as it has a wide range of symptoms. The term Autism characterizes those affected moderately to severely and its associated disorder, Asperger's Syndrome characterizes high functioning individuals that still fall into the Spectrum as it is called by many. Some of the distinguishing symptoms are, delayed speech during childhood, impaired motor skills and a preference to play alone, often described as being in his or her own world. While these are some of the most distinguishing symptoms, the presence of them when you compare autistic children vary in degree or may even not be present. For example, some autistic kids are really talkative while others could be extremely silent, to the point of not talking at all. It is because of the fact that symptoms can vary that Autism is difficult to detect in some cases and in those cases the person receives an Asperger's diagnoses later in life. the prevalence of Autism/Asperger's recently has been said to affects as many as 1 in 75 with 3 out of 4 of those individuals afflicted being boys. Curiously Autistic kids tend to show adverse bodily reactions to certain food ingredients such as wheat and gluten for example.

During my time of working with Autistic kids, I have seen many very differing personalities and symptoms, such as little/moderate to severe speech impediment, social unawareness or inappropriateness, and impaired motor skills. Being socially awkward is among the most prevalent symptom and varies the greatest.

The causes are wildly debated and no scientific evidence backs any of the theories proposed but I will discuss some of them here and present some of the speculation that backs them.

The first cause theory is vaccines. Many have proposed that new vaccines such as the MMR(Measles-Mumps-Rubella) vaccine that contain minor amounts of mercury are responsible for changes in the brain during the early years of life that is said to result in Autism/Asperger's. There have been experiments conducted that claimed to discredit this theory, but many parents of kids afflicted with the disorder have countered saying they denied the vaccines to siblings of autistic kids and they are unaffected.

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