The more common ones are repetitive motions, such as walking a certain way, or constantly flapping your arms, or in some cases making what look like gestures with their fingers repetitively. The main concept behind this symptom is repetitiveness, many children will line toys up instead of playing with them, and even become upset if the toys are taken out of line. Some children will become obsessive about patterns such as meals and routines, or even which routes they ride along to school. Small deviations in these patterns can cause emotional outbursts. Of course, normally developing children may also display behaviors and or some of these symptoms, but if a child is displaying multiple symptoms then it is important for them to see a doctor who is experienced with ASD (NIMH). .
If you think your child has ASD, the first step is to visit a pediatrician or similar childhood health provider. If your child shows signs of a developmental disorder, they are then referred to a team of doctors and a wide range of specialists for an evaluation. There is no blood test or physical examination but children can usually be confidently diagnosed by age 2 through asking questions of the parents and through the doctors and specialist's own observations of the child (Johnson). .
About 1 in 110 children have ASD, with boys having close to five times the risk as girls of developing symptoms of ASD. The causes are still relatively unknown but research suggests that both genes and environment both play a role in causing ASD. For example, in identical twins, if one has ASD, the other does also nearly 9 out of 10 times. Also if a sibling has ASD, then the other siblings have 35 times the normal risk of also having ASD. There are many environmental factors also, but being exposed to any one of them does not significantly raise your risk of developing ASD. It is more linked to how these environmental factors such as toxins affect the processes of certain genes that are believed to be responsible for ASD.
