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AUTISM INFORMATION: MAP OF REALITY:
Describing the Physical Features Of The Brain and Body
of People within The Autism Spectrum
The purpose of this Autism Information Orientation pages is to provide some descriptive answers to the frequently asked "What" questions about the Autism Spectrum:
•What is Autism?
Autism is a physical condition that changes the growth patterns of an infant's brain in ways that effect its early learning progress. Autism can effect the way the human brain is structured and its functions over a person's life spans. It significantly impacts the natural development of a young child's brain, and therefore, early learning in ways that have many complex and longterm effects. This means that Autism is a very serious neurological disorder. It often negatively effects the sensory, communication, and social information processing capacities needed for a person to understand the worlds within and around us in a more typical and fully functional way as we age across time, and live, work, and cope across home, school and community settings.
Yes this is difficult to read. This is the bad news about Autism for us all. In the face of this negative information is important to realize the positive benefits of early-as-possible diagnosis of this condition, even when it hurts parents to hear it. Because, the sooner we know what the problems of Autism represent for us all, the sooner we can get the support and help we need to recover our internal resources and gain new external resources we need to start learning. This helps us find and use the most effective, appropriate, and available best Autism practice models, which we may choose for our child. Therefore, our getting this very sorrowful news is the first step in the right direction to what can be hope-filled progress. Therefore, after we take some time to absorb the impact of loss, we must grab hold of the joy of making a real difference as family and service providers to people with Autism, then we may pursue our next step forward...to just keep going.
•What does the word "Autism" mean?
It is a latin word construction that simply means "self+condition" or atypical condition of the self. Autism is a word that names a specific set of significant behavioral symptoms that have been linked to biological impacts on the typical developmental patterns of growth, change, and stability of the central nervous system over the life span of people within the Autism Spectrum. Autism is medically/psychiatrically classified as a Pervasive Developmental Disorder that globally effects a person’s early cognitive development, usually including basic sensorimotor planning, typical behaviors, communication powers (distinct from speech and language capacity), and social relatedness capacities. Most often, it presents as significant delays in preschoolers' typically rapid and broad acquisition of functional skills, communication fluency, and typical social interactiveness across people, places, and events. It is usually apparent in its effects in infants birth to 3 years old, when our critical initial neurological development takes place. However, Mild Autism and Aspergers Syndrome may only become apparent as late as 5 to 10 years old, when a child's higher social communication, reasoning, and perspective-taking skills should emerge. However, often missed, and even much later diagnoses may occur if the onset of Autism is misunderstood or unusual in its presentation. Therefore, the great variety in presentation and complexity of this rare and highly varied condition, in combination with a systemic lack of federal, state, or local funding for more proactive screening and effective levels of the early childhood services that can delay a diagnosis for months or even years.
•What is a diagnosis along Autism Spectrum based on?
A medical diagnosis of Autism is based on both family and service providers' observations and reports of specific characteristic behavioral symptoms, which relate to specific combinations of pervasive developmental delays, disorders, or even disabilities in communication, social, and functional skills. Once believed to be caused by early caretakers' psychological problems, these behavioral symptoms are now understood to be indicative of serious underlying biologic problems in the central nervous system that can CAUSE gaps and glitches in our parent/child experiences. Autism, may often be accompanied by other related sensory, motor, and cognitive problems caused by similar biological conditions. Only a comprehensive psychiatric examination, by very experienced and licensed medical mental health clinicians, using standardized criteria, can be used to accurately “diagnose” an Autism Spectrum Disorder. This is how Autism is identified.
Public education evaluations/eligibility identifications are free and are intended to establish only service eligibility using legal educational need standards and not medical criteria. This is an important distinction for parents to keep in mind as they seek both a timely accurate diagnosis and eligibility and placements for services. Insurance companies usually flag files of children identified with Autism to deny all medical and therapeutic prescribed to treat Autism, because it is has been classified it as an learning disorder/educational need. Therefore, you may want to be sure that all your Autism records are paid for separately and kept private from all your child's medical files. Medical needs for therapies should be managed with only the diagnostic terms that related to those services. However, in quite the reverse, your medical diagnosis may be useful in gaining earlier access to educational services and to advocate for adequate levels of Autism services, and more appropriate program placements. Learning these public and private service eligibility ropes as a new parent is one reason to join a local Autism family support group ASAP.
•What will a person with Autism be like when they grow up?
Autism is a heterogeneous spectrum disorder, which means that this condition presents in a wide variety of mild, moderate, and severe forms across our group, and even within each person. Therefore, any one person with Autism may have mild, moderate, and severe splintered features, combined with other more typical features too. This also means that no two people with Autism may be similar in how their Autism presents, not even two siblings, or even identical twins with Autism. It is a very complex disorder that does not result in a single known outcome. This is why Autism can be so difficult to timely identify, accurately diagnose, effectively treat, or reliably study.
Prognosis for any one individual with this disorder is cannot be known during childhood, and will usually only become stable after puberty, which is the final stage of neurological development for us all. Some individuals greatly improve during childhood, others less so, a few may regress, whereas most remain unusually stable in the features of our Autism, especially as compared to the growth and predictable changes experienced by typical people during our entire life spans. In other words, a person with Autism will usually remain a person with Autism, just one that grows, and matures and gains the skills they need to function. For people with fully intact intellectual capacities AND a early intervention programs focused on sensory integrative, behavioral self-management, communication, social awareness, and adult life skills development in tandum with their regular educational goals, Autism and Aspergers may not represent a developmental disability, but rather a group membership in a population that sees the world in atypical ways. Therefore the Autism Spectrum moves from those of us who will be greatly impacted and truly permenently disabled to those of us who are fully functional, just in significantly atypical ways, particularly in our social relatedness. This is why adaptive social skills training is needed for BOTH more atypical people with and typical people without Autism whenever we are going to live, work, and cope together across homes, schools, and communities. Then we are both ABLE to build bridges between our two worlds.
However, it is important to stress that most people with Autism are both at the greatest of risks in their developmental outcomes, and yet, we also have much capacity to show positive growth in our skills and very beneficial maturation in our behaviors, relative to our own innate developmental potentials. This means that people with Autism, as well as our family and service providers, can have hope in and benefit greatly from: 1) timely and accurate diagnosis, 2) substantial direct training services in specialized Autism intervention models using family-centered options, and 3) targeted life span support programs offered according to individualized plans throughout our lives, and across settings. This is the positive potential we share in relation to all people with Autism.
We know that this information can be very painful to read for the first time for our new parents. Be sure to browse the INTERVENTIONS>Influence links to learn about the "good news" of how parents and teachers may help people with Autism reach our fullest developmental potentials over our life spans. Hold onto the hope that experienced professionals and successful families can show you the path ahead and share these strategies with you as soon as you are ready. People with Autism across the full severe to moderate to mild spectrum can have productive and enjoyable lives, and so can our family members. So hang onto this very realistic hope.
•What causes Autism?
The developmental features and behavioral symptoms of Autism are the result of a neurological disorder that affects the typical growth, change, and stability of the structures and functions of the central nervous system--the brain. Autism has proven to have a large number of causes that may fall into two categories: INTERNAL (genetic/innate and congenital/naturally occuring) and EXTERNAL (environmental toxins/but NOT nurtured). Genetic means that the person has blood relatives that have had Autism or related disorders, or experienced genetic mutation or damage, which have occurred in ways that may cause other family members to inherit a greater or lesser tendency to also have an Autism Spectrum Disorder or related condition. There is no one gene that has shown to correlation to families that have patterns of Autism. Recent Genome Project research shows that as many as 20-30 genes may be involved in Autism. This means that we do not yet have a single genetic marker test to predict risks of Autism or to identify prenatal or newborn infants with Autism. Autism is also varied Congenital condition that can just occur naturally as the nervous system unborn or young child develops. Recent research shows that some infants with Autism may have had a significant overgrowth of their brain cells and size. Environmental means that some specific non-genetic element that the child was exposed to during pregnancy or infancy (birth to three), may cause pervasive changes or significant damage to the anatomical structures or biochemical systems of the brain during any one of several critical phases of development during the pregnancy and/or the early years of life. Toxins and drug and alchohol abuse have been linked to Autism. A few subtypes of Autism have medical causes. Information about all the possible causes of Autism are constantly being researched and the Sources link below can provide you with literature that publish biomedical studies on Autism.
Autism is 4 times more common in boys than girls and 4 times more common in first-borns than later births. This would mean that the well-known vulnerability of first born boys and all male infants inutero and birth events may contribute to Autism. Current research indicates that, in many cases, it is linked to a very complex genetic predisposition to the condition. This means that the disorder could present itself congenitally as part of our innate developmental potential or be triggered by many different negative birth or environmental conditions during infancy. The biological condition of the structures and functions of the brains of people with Autism often varies widely across the population, and they do not always correlate to the severity of the Autism. Early autopsy research, and current brain scan studies, have both revealed a wide variety of neurological differences and/or damage in the individual brains of people with Autism, rather than finding a single biological brain syndrome. This variety in the causes and presentation of this condition make it difficult to research and treat as a single population. This would mean that identifying the biologically distinct subgroups within the spectrum of Autism would improve the validity of scientific research, increase the significance of medical research results, and improve educational intervention efficacy. With the current increases in the number of children with Autism, such research efforts are now critical for our group's wellfare.
Autism Spectrum Disorders are NOT caused by poor parenting or inadequate teaching. However, best practice parenting and teaching strategies can make a real difference and have significant measurable effects in the positive progress of most children with Autism over time. Even young and older adults with Autism who may not have gotten appropriate early intervention show significant progress when they access developmentally appropriate Autism services. Therefore people with Autism must depend on how well adults without Autism understand us.
This means that Autism can automatically impede OUR own adult capacities to nurture learning for our children with Autism. This is what can make this condition very difficult for us to live, work, and cope with as adult care and service providers. We must come to understand the MUTUAL IMPACTS of Autism. Therefore, the best and most immediately effective solution to this problem is to focus on our own relationship Autism. Each of our pages and each of our homepage matrix units moves from a whole picture orientation map to basic information, intermediate practice, to advancing scholarly inquiry. This can help each reader become more fully aware of what you and our community does and does NOT know about Autism.
Be sure to take breaks and to reread the orientation basic sections FIRST to understand them better. This is very hard work for family members who are upset, or who want to move onto the intermediate or advancing levels in a hurry. It helps to go slower at a steady daily pace. Autism is a definite Tortoise Wins the Race learning situation over our life spans. Keep moving in a slower and surer way each day, puttting in as much time as you feel you are ready, able and willing. This can mean long term success for people with and without Autism as we work together using the best practice model each family may choose to live, work, and cope with over time.
•What are we facing if our child does have Autism?
The reality we must face, is that Autism is often a very misunderstood condition. It is a use-able diagnostic identification for a wide spectrum of disorders in relation a number of underlying causes, many of which are still unknown. The word "Autism" then, does help us accurately name a real condition noted for very atypical thinking processes, complex and difficult social behaviors, diverse communication profiles. This naming of reality can also help us clearly and quickly identify unique adaptive methods for meeting needs using highly individualized educational resources and our mutual experiences of many significant mutual learning obstacles for us all. However, it may also be a misused label that is placed upon a person in ways that people with power over us can use to create negative bias and to act out ableist prejudice. The solution to this problem of oppression of our group does not mean that we should stop using the diagnosis of Autism to timely and accurately name our reality, but instead to begin to work together to also name and then deconstruct these abuses of power-over us by those of us without Autism who label people. Because, any new words we choose, most likely, will be taken and abused as labels if we don't.
Most of our families must deal with many struggles. It is a struggle to initially obtain a proper diagnosis. It is usually an ongoing struggle to find and provide our children the most appropriate services and effective interventions. It is a struggle to live, work. and cope together as we learn how to support persons with Autism to understand our typical world of people, objects, and events. These struggles will be some of the most important and worthwhile ones we experience in our life. Amidst all these struggles we must engage in the challenge of achieving our potentials for a full and satisfying life too. This is why maintaining a healthy self and family care balance is key.
Like many complex issues, in the United States and around the world, in the field of Autism there are different ideologies and perspectives regarding the "correct" approach to take. As usual, there is no one "right" answer, no solution that works for every family and person with Autism. Therefore, it is important that everyone in our community learn to respect each other's hopes, ideas, concerns, and choices, and commit to fully support each other's efforts. Threshold will continue to provide relevant information to assist parents in selecting the path we wish to take with our children and to make providers more aware of all these options too.
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