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Symptoms, Causes, Treatment And Other Things About Autism By Groshan Fabiola Autism is a pervasive development disorder, it affects the way a person communicates and relates to other people. Children affected by this disorder have problems with the understanding of reality, interacting with people, places, events, sounds and lights, and they can also have problems with their imagination. It is known that children affected by also have a limited range of interests, and about 75% of them can have mental retardation as well.
The symptoms of usually appear before a child is 3 years old, and last all his life. These symptoms can vary, they can be sometimes mild, or very severe. There can appear difficulty with verbal communication, the inability to take part to a conversation even when the child has the ability to speak, difficulty to interact with people and with the surrounding reality, lack of imagination, inability to make friends and the preference to play alone. We can also mention the preoccupation with unusual objects or parts of objects, an unreasonable insistence on following routines in detail, difficulty with non-verbal communication and repetitive body movements or patterns of behavior (for example head banging, flapping, spinning). There exists a form of called savantism, and those affected by this illness have exceptional skills in specific areas like music, art, numbers, and are able to perform these skills without any practice.
A child could be suspected of autism, if he does not gesture, such as point or wave, does not babble or coo by 12 months of age, does not say single words by 16 months, or does not say two-word phrases on his own by 24 months. Another sign of autism, a sign that can appear at any age is the loss of any language and social skills.
The cause of in not known, but there are some possible factors that may lead to autism. Researchers believe that some people can have a genetic predisposition to autism, it is possible that this condition to be passed on from parents to children. It is possible that in some children, environmental factors to play a role too. There are also other theories that say that antibodies inappropriately produced by the body's immune system may attack the brain of children, causing autism. It was also said that it is possible that children with have abnormal timing of the growth of their brains.
It appeared the question if some vaccines can cause or other kind of behavioral disorder. Some parents of children with suspected that there is a link between measles, mumps, rubella vaccine and autism, but there wasn’t found any convincing evidence.
Autism is a disorder that appears 4 times more often in boys than in girls, and there are about 10 – 20 cases of to every 10,000 people.
In order to diagnose autism, if the symptoms are present, the doctor will perform a complete medical history and physical examination. Then, he will do some tests, like X-rays and blood tests, to find out if the symptoms are caused by a physical disorder. If there isn’t
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