Autism is a disorder that severely impairs the development of a person’s ability to communicate, interact with other people, and maintain normal contact with the outside world. It is found in two to five of every ten thousand children and appears before the age of three. It is also four to five more times common in males than females. (Encarta 1) At first children with similar autistic traits were considered child schizophrenics. Not until a child psychiatry professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School Leo Kanner named the disorder “Early Infantile Autism” which was the title of his paper on the subject. Kanner later noted that the term autism was a poor word choice. It was supposed to relate the resemblance of the diagnosed children to autistic (daydreaming) adults. Autism in adults is essentially voluntary, and therefore many psychologists and psychiatrists to conclude that “autistic” children were normal individuals who voluntarily chose to disassociate themselves from realit

There is no cure for autism, but special treatment can help reduce symptoms and help people with autism function better. Early diagnosis and intervention is commonly believed to be essential in helping control autism. New and better ways to diagnose autism are coming out and previous ones are being improved. There are two current systems for diagnosis of autism; The International classification of Diseases (ICD-10), prepared by the World Health Organization (1987), and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), issued by the American Psychiatric Association (1994). While both systems generally agree on the criteria for classifying autism, they differ in their terminology. (Wolfberg 16) Many different treatments and attempts have been made to try and cure autism but no complete cure has been found. Many of the treatments work on some subjects but cannot be proven to be the cause of the improvement. Bernard Rimuland used large quantities of the vitamin-B to try and treat autism. After trying different types of different vitamins, he concluded that large doses of chemicals in vitamins help create a higher responsiveness to the outside world. His tests are not proven though. (Rimuland 161-163) Other treatments include behavior modification, medication, facilitated communication, auditory training, and vision therapy. A rather new treatment uses classical conditioning to try and improve the behavior of autistics. It was found that people with autism condition much faster than people without autism. This discovery may help children cope with their disorder. Indiana University psychologist Joseph Steinmetz, PhD., found this discovery (Azar 1)

What causes autism is a question that cannot be truly answered, as researchers are yet to find the source of autism. Current research points to a biological or neurological difference in the brain. Also studies have found recently that autistic people have abnormally low blood flow to certain parts of the brain and reduced number of certain brain cells. (Encarta-Autism) Another linked theory is that autism is found in gene patterns where it may run in the family. (www.autism-society.org) Along with this, evidence that in the case of twins, unusually high rates of identical pairs where both children being diagnosed are present, while low rates are found for fraternal pairs. Studies of families have shown that 2 to 6% of the siblings of autistic children are also autisti

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