1. By Mikayla

2.  Is a disorder characterised by extreme unresponsiveness to others, poor communication skills and highly repetitive, routine type behaviours.  Infants and children with autism have difficulty interacting with and communicating with others, and they have a limited range of behaviours, interests and activities.  Begins in infancy.  Symptoms will show by the age of 3 years old.

3.  Professionals use observations of the child and interviews with the parents, in order to understand the child’s behavioural characteristics.

4.  There are three categories of symptoms.  Social interaction  Communication  behaviour

5.  People with autism of this nature, find it hard to form normal social relationships and often respond inappropriately in social situations  They will mostly likely lack the development of strong attachments to other people.  Resist eye contact  They will not seek comfort from a caregiver when distressed  Difficulty making friends  Little or no interest in others  Often do not respond when someone calls their name  Responses to situations (if any) will usually be negative  Difficulty showing affection; often alone  Will not engage in imaginative/interactive play

6.  Either no or very limited language skills  Use language in an unusual way.  Their speech is formal, mechanical and monotone; there is no variation in their tone when they speak.  Often display ‘ecolalia’ where they repeat back what someone says, like an echo.  Difficulty understanding social rules of listening and then talking

7.  A limited range of behaviours; which they repeat, such as rocking back and forth or spinning round in circles  Some psychologists believe that autistic children continue to repeat behaviours such as these because it is comforting for them and has a calming effect on them.  Like routine; spend lots of time arranging and rearranging objects to by straight or in a particular order  A strong need for sameness and become stressed from change  Attach themselves to objects  Might spend long periods of time intently watching something such as their hands or fingers, as if mesmerised by their movements

8.  A low level of intellectual functioning is often the case with autism  However sometimes they are exceptional a a very specific area.  The individuals with normal or above normal intelligence usually have a less serve level of autism.

9.  Contemporary psychologists use the term autism spectrum disorder in relation to autism.  The word spectrum is used because of the wide range of individual differences in the experience of autism.

10.  Asperger’s syndrome has many of the symptoms of autism, but they do not have the same difficulty with language.  Individuals with Asperger's syndrome are also more likely to have normal or above normal intelligence.

11.  One kind of behavioural therapy is called ‘Behaviour Modification’ can be used to help an autistic child develop communication and social skills. This involves consistently reinforcing the child whenever they behave in an appropriate way until they learn this way of behaving.

12.  I got all my information straight from the book.  Thank you for watching. 