Autism

Suppose that in order to sleep you must be wrapped up tightly so that you are unable to move your hands and legs. Suppose that you were a child that went through your entire school day hearing the humming sounds given off by the fluorescent lighting that is common in almost every classroom. Suppose you had the ability to understand what was being said to you, but you could not answer the person speaking to you in an intelligible way. These are some of the common things that a child with autism must endure on a daily basis.

As the scientific field learns more and more about autism, they have decided that the term autism identifies more than one type of disorder. In fact, it was not until 1979 that two scientist, by the name of L. Wing and J. Gould, authors of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, decided that the term autism should apply to a spectrum of disorders. Because of their findings, a definition for autism cannot be easily written in just one or two sentences.

So, what is autism? I guess there is no one answer or definition. Instead, doctors and educators rely on a list of behavioral criteria that the person with autism will display in one fashion or another.

According to Wing and Gould, for a person to be diagnosed with autism they must have impairments in three different areas. These areas include impairments in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and in imaginative activity, and a restricted interest in activities.

Before scientist came to this conclusion, there were a number of wrong conclusions that either the scientist of the time had made, or that society had made, to explain why children with autism were acting the way they were. In one book I read titled Autism, an introduction to psychological theory, by Francesca Happe, 1994, the author lists some common myths that have been perpetuated over the years. They included the myth that the children became autistic because they had "refrigerator parenting". More simply put, the children were emotionally neglected by their parents. Another theory stated that all autistic individuals were savants, or people who have extraordinary skills in one area. Other scientist thought perhaps it was a type of psychosis, so they dealt with it much like a mental illness. Needless to say, this is a complex problem that affects all aspects of life for the person who is diagnosed with autism. Because of the lack of medical research into this syndrome, it was many years before this disability was given its own identity and taken off the list of mental illnesses.

The next thing people want to know after you give them the definition of autism is how the average person would be able to recognize the person with autism. According