When someone smiles, for instance, a child without autism knows that the smiling person is happy or being friendly. Children with autism, however, have trouble connecting a person’s gestures – such as a smile of frown – with the person’s feelings. It’s difficult, too, for children with autism to link words with their meanings. Imagine trying to talk with someone or learn from a teacher if you couldn’t make senses of their words and gestures and could not come up with the right words to express your own thoughts!

Autism also creates a confusing world of senses. Quiet sounds may be loud and distracting to a child with autism. A sudden noise could be terrifying. A person’s touch might set off a wave of strong sensations – like when a chill gives you the shivers, but much worse.

The disorder makes some children with autism behave differently too. Some flap their hands or say certain words over and over, have temper tantru

Exceptional Lives Special Education

Without meaningful gestures or the language to ask for things, children with autism are at a loss to let others know what they need. As a result, children with autism may simply scream or grab what they want.

This is really neat to see how different these children really are. Some children with autism display remarkable abilities. A few demonstrate skills far out of the ordinary. At a young age when other children are drawing straight lines and scribbling some children with autism are able to draw detailed realistic pictures in three-dimensional perspective. Some toddlers who are autistic are so visually skilled that they can put complex jigsaw puzzles together. Many begin to read exceptionally earl-sometimes even before they begin to speak. Some who have a keenly developed sense of hearing can play musical instruments they have never been taught play a song accurately after hearing it once or name any note they hear. Like the person played by Dustin Hoffman in the Rain Man some people with autism can memorize entire television shows pages of the phone book or the scores of every major league baseball game for the past 20 years. However, such skills known as islets of intelligence or savant skills are rare.

Research done with Exceptional Lives Special Education

In the United States, over 500,000 people have autism or on of several other similar disabilities. Doctors call those similar disabilities pervasive developmental disorders, or PDDs. About one in every 500 children has some type of autism or PDD. Children who have autism usually start having symptoms between the ages of 18 and 36 months. More boys have autism than girls.

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