All the autistic child's deficiencies could be seen converging in this one: the deficiency which renders it unable or unwilling to put together the primary building blocks of experience. It affects the senses, it affects speech, it affects action, it affects emotion. The autistic child does not move naturally from one sound to another, from one word to another, from one idea to another, from one experience to another. (p. 267)

Most people have heard of the disorder autism, but few actually know what it is. This leads us to the question: what is autism? Autism is a developmental disability that usually appears in children during their first three years of life. This disorder affects the brain’s ability to function as well as other behaviors connected with the brain. “It has been estimated that as many as 1 in 500 individuals (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1997) have autism. Autism is as much as four times as likely to affect boys than girls and knows no racial, ethnical, or social boundaries. Family income, lifestyle, and educ

Research shows that people with autism are generally unable to participate in normal peer interaction unless carefully taught how to do so in a controlled environment (Haring and Lovinger 1989; Henning, Dalrymple, Davis and Madeira 1982). In people with autism the pleasure of imaginative play is easily transformed into the pleasure of highly constrained ritualization. Yet, as people with autism reach adolescence, many desire friendship with others (Aarons and Gittens 1992).

Autism is considered a subgroup of Pervasive Developmental Disorder (P.D.D). and is thought to be at the most severe end of the P.D.D. continuum (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Characteristics of a P.D.D. include an impairment of social interactions, impairment of communication skills, both verbal and non-verbal and impairment of imaginary play. These three qualities as well as two others make up the classic characteristics of autism:

Of all the developmental brain disorders, autism is perhaps the most fascinating, the most mysterious, and the most telling--fascinating, because of its impact on absolutely every aspect of a child's perception of and interaction with the surrounding world; mysterious, because of the complexity of the interacting brain systems that it perturbs; telling, because it strikes at the social, cognitive, and linguistic abilities that seem, at least on the surface, so essential to one's very humanity. During the past few decades, the riddle of autism has begun to yield to advances in the study of autistic behavior and the biological foundations that affect this behavior. The examination of brain anatomy, physiology, histology and function in people with autism continues to supply new information on the nature of this perplexing syndrome. Maybe one day there will be a cure, until then, we can only hope.

(B) qualitative impairments in communication as demonstrated by at least one of the following:

Some topics in this essay:
Psychiatric Association, Gilman Tuchman, Claiborne Park, Frith Hermelin, Barron Barron, Phenomenon Rituals, Schopler Mesibov, Impaired Communication, Control Prevention, Relationships People, people autism, conversational interaction, psychiatric association, american psychiatric, association 1994, american psychiatric association, williams 1992, psychiatric association 1994, frith 1989, social interaction, gilman tuchman 1995, faraway eyes, stereotyped repetitive, aarons gittens 1992,