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Autism - What Is It?

Autism. The word "a borrowed label from adult psychiatry where it had been used to refer to the progressive loss of contact with the outside world, experienced by schizophrenics." 1 Autism is a biological and neurological disorder which typically appears during the first three years of life. It affects the functioning of the brain and is a life long disability in the central nervous system resulting in 'odd behaviors' which effect communicational skills, includes exhibiting certain 'trait' behaviors and it affects social development. It is an interference with the normal development of the brain in areas which control verbal and non-verbal communication, social interaction and sensory development. This complex development disability is four times more common in boys than girls and occurs in 1 in 500 people (centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1997). Social, ethnic and racial factors have been shown not to contribute to the cause of this disorder. One thing that characterizes autism is it's early onset. Typical behaviors show up before the age of 36 months, but one of the problems is the symptoms are often somewhat masked during the first two years of life by developmental milestones. Autism is a spectral disorder that has a wide spectrum of severity, symptoms ranging from person to person. Autism is a brain disorder that prevents people from properly understanding what they see hear and sense.

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