by Michelle C

Created on: August 13, 2007   Last Updated: November 25, 2008

Autism is a neurological disorder that affects the normal development of the brain in areas of social interaction and communication. The first signs of autism usually surface as developmental delays before the age of 3. Autism is generally categorized as a 'spectrum' disorder. This means that the symptoms and traits specific to autism can manifest themselves in a wide variety of combinations and can range from mild to severe. Autism is most notably marked by severe difficulties in communication and forming relationships with people, in developing language skills and in using abstract concepts. Characteristics consist of repetitive and limited patterns of behavior and obsessive resistance to even minor adjustments to familiar surroundings or routines.

Autism, at least reported cases of it, is indisputably on the rise. A recent report from the National Autistic Society in the UK confirmed that the condition now affects 1 in 166 children in the UK .Even though the general consensus is that this upsurge is, at least in part, attributable to better diagnostic procedures, it is apparent that the condition itself is reaching epidemic proportions world wide. It must however be said at this juncture that the situation is not as bleak at it may initially appear.

Virtually every symptom characteristic of autism can be observed in children who do not fit this diagnostic category. In a study carried out by a specialist in this field, "Rutter (1966) searched the Maudsley hospital records over a 9-year period to locate all pre-pubescent children who had been given an unequivocal diagnosis of child psychosis, schizophrenic syndrome of childhood or infantile autism, and compared case-notes of this 'psychotic' group with those of a clinically heterogeneous control group consisting of non-psychotic children attending the same department, matched on age and measured intelligence. The frequency of various symptoms was compared for the two groups and, as might be expected, the frequency of abnormalities in interpersonal relationships, speech and ritualistic and compulsive phenomena was greater for the psychotic than for the non-psychotic group. However, all types of abnormal behavior observed in the psychotic group were also found in the non-psychotic children"(extract from British Journal of Disorders of Communication 24, 107-121 (1989) The College of Speech Therapists, London
Autism, Asperger's syndrome and semantic-pragmatic disorder: Where are the boundaries?
D. V. M. Bishop Department

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