what is autism???

Answer 1

I'm autistic and I'll try to answer this for you, but try reading writing by other autistics for even more information. The autistics.org library is a good place to start. (I've used this answer before for the same question, so you may have seen it around Yahoo Answers in the past few days.) I use "we" and "us" to refer to the others in the autistic community and me. As far as I know, you aren't autistic.

Being autistic means that one has a neurological configuration different from the norm (those of us in the autistic community call non-autistics neurotypicals or NTs). It doesn't mean that one is wired defectively, just differently.

Our senses are different from NT senses: we tend to be either hypo- or hyper- sensitive to sensory stimuli of different sorts, have an increased incidence of synesthesia (a crossing between senses, to use an example from my experience, the ring of a telephone looks like a red spiraling corkscrew), have difficulty parsing speech (central auditory processing disorder), hear pitches that most people can't, and have difficulty reading text because of various visual processing issues collectively known as Irlen Syndrome. (Those aren't all of the sensory oddities autistics can have, just a few of the most common.) Some of our sensory sensitivities can put us at a disadvantage in a society designed for NTs - for example, many of us can see fluorescent flicker, which can result in anything from minor irritation, to headaches, to falling asleep. We do something called stimming, which includes things like flapping our hands, rocking back and forth, listening to the same piece of music repeatedly, and jumping up and down. This allows us to deal with sensory stimuli so that we don't become overloaded, and also lets us get the extra stimulation we may need. Lots of NTs try to stop us from stimming, but while bigots may dislike it, it's necessary for us to function in this world.

Most NTs and many autistics think that being autistic means that one has poor social skills and lacks empathy. In reality, we have autistic social skills and so have trouble interacting with NTs, but are usually just fine with other autistics. While NT social interaction generally takes the form of intrusive give and take interactions, we do better in parallel. We can be successful with NTs, so long as they are willing to do their half of the work to communicate with us, and we can have trouble interacting with other autistics if they have been trained to pretend to be NT or if we have not been allowed opportunities to interact with our own kind, but as a general rule we're better at interacting with other autistics, just as NTs are better at interacting with other NTs. We're also just fine at empathizing with other autistics, and no more lacking in empathy than neurotypicals. Most normal-brained people have difficulty empathizing with autistics. That's why they bully us, why they think that a particular therapy (ABA) that invalidates who we are and tries to replace us with a neurotypical person is helpful, and why they so often excuse the murder of autistics. (Not saying that all neurotypicals are like that, just that many are.)

We also tend to have 1-3 very intense interests, called perseverations. Mine is autism, specifically autistic advocacy, if you couldn't tell already. *g* These are a good thing, and we need to have time to focus on these interests. Monologuing on them isn't bad, in fact, it's one of the parts of natural autistic interaction. If one can't do that, though, it doesn't mean that they're non-autistic. I'm the same way with sharing my interests through speech, I learned to hide them from the time I was about 8 years old. I just don't consider that a good thing, since I would like to be able to discuss my perseverations in real life and not just online.

Oh, and we tend to have difficulties with spoken communication as well, though some of us are eventually fine with it. While some of us begin talking at the normal time, many are generally delayed, and some of us develop normally and then "regress." In the case of so-called regression, it is important to remember that we were always autistic and that we didn't just suddenly become autistic. Autistic developmental patterns follow different trajectories than NT development, and we tend to experience skill shifts throughout our lives. We're almost always better with text than with speech and usually have trouble with telephones. We have trouble with the figurative language that NTs use, often have trouble with slang, are straightforward in our words, and are often echolalic, meaning that we repeat things that we've heard over and over again.

So far, it seems that autism is genetic - our parents tend to have autistic traits themselves, and we usually have relatives on the autistic spectrum. Autism is not mercury poisoning, and not food allergies. We are more prone to things like allergies than NTs, and we may act differently when those allergies are treated, but we're still just as autistic as we were.

Also, I highly recommend reading all the way through www.gettingthetruthout.org and reading some of the entries in ballastexistenz.autistics.org. You'll both get more information on autism and learn that autistics, even those designated "low-functioning" (I don't believe that functioning levels are useful myself) don't necessarily want to be cured.

Answer 2

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, and uneven intellectual development often with mental retardation. Symptoms begin in early childhood. The cause in most children is unknown, although evidence supports a genetic component; in some, autism may be caused by a medical condition. Diagnosis is based on developmental history and observation. Treatment consists of behavioral management and sometimes drug therapy.
Please see the web pages for more details on Autism.

Answer 3

Autism is classified as a neurodevelopmental disorder that manifests in delays of "social interaction, language as used in social communication, or symbolic or imaginative play," with "onset prior to age 3 years," according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Autism is often not physiologically obvious, in that outward appearance may not indicate a disorder, and diagnosis typically comes from a complete physical and neurological evaluation.
Autism is often not physiologically obvious, in that outward appearance may not indicate a disorder, and diagnosis typically comes from a complete physical and neurological evaluation.With early intervention, intense therapies (most notably Applied Behavioral Analysis), practice, and schooling, some children diagnosed with autism may improve on their skills to the point of neurotypical children. Some autistic children and adults are opposed to attempts to cure autism, because they see autism as part of who they are or the attempts are preceived as intensive and unnatural in some cases.

Answer 4

Autism is a developmental disorder. The symptoms of autism vary from person to person and can include variances or disabilities in motor skills, intellectual development, social skills, and communication skills.

Answer 5

Any doctor will likely give you a different skew on this, often filled with stereotypes of symptoms rather than their underlying causes and evidence taken from studies with pet hypothesis and little communication/quoting with people having the condition of Autism explaining themselves.

Some symptoms, like delayed motor skills, however, do not have underlying problems: they are exactly what they appear as.
Same goes with lack of ability to read body movements/emotions and, to some extent, emotion embedded in tone-of-voice: the solution to this isn't to keep Autistic people from social interaction (although bars and other places where speech can not be heard well, for example, are risky), however, it is to keep them around people who do not believe in white lies and being indirect verbally (neither of these behaviors is ethical b/c each results in acting of ignorance / uninformed (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)).

Technically, because Autism slows down certain forms of functioning, it is a form of mental retardation yet often shifts intelligence to different (often less social) areas rather than compromising it. Trust me....I in fact have a low form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome.

An example of symptoms vs. underlying problems, people with Autism are known to have strong focus on select few interests. But many (if not most) of such people are focussed on few interests because they find, often from bullying for being slow responders, that the only subjects they can gain respect for are ones they are more naturally experts on from youth. So, naturally, they learn more about such subjects from youth and become "young professors" or those subjects into adulthood yet sometimes, in social isolation, they become so depressed they can neither study nor be social; but that's essentially a disability through depression, not a direct effect of Autism.

In general the best way to defeat the social inwardness of people on the Autistic spectrum (from Asperger's/light-autism to moderate autism) is to give them a chance in social situations where they are not criticized for or judged by slow response and get a sense they are accomplishing something genuine for the other person (because otherwise often they mistakenly end up feeling they create more good in the world by studying then talking). For autistic people a lack of sense of being able to create social good underlies any other supposed "social dissabilities": where there's no demand you can not expect supply.

I realize you did not specifically ask for this level of detail but, for the sake of you and anyone who deals with anyone with this condition and I could go into many more examples. Yet, in general, autism is a different distribution of ability rather than a dissability and anything less than severe autism, which can effect speech ability, can be "cured" by being treated as an equal for enough time to erase traumatic experiences/bullying from younger ages. All you need is love.

Answer 6

There is a beautiful woman who wrote about her autism, she is brilliant and a professor. It is called "Thinking in Pictures". She has great empathy and understanding for animals and .... well, read the book if you are interested enough.

Answer 7

autism is a disorder of communicatin skills.the child will be in its world of own and doesnt mingle with others. the pathology behind is lack of neuronal collections in the brain(brain is like a circuit without connections)many of the children have varying levels of mental capacity.what all they need is your care,to put them in a special school for autism.many of them can come out and lead an independent life if properly taken care of.