Thesis Paper on Autism

Thesis about Autism

Autism is a disorder of neural development. It is characterized by impaired communication and social interaction, which begin before children reach the age of three. In people suffering from this disorder nerve cells and their synapses are altered, which is why information processing in the brain is affected. It is still not very well understood why this happens.

The main symptom that allows to distinguish autism from the other disorders is unusual social development. At first, children are less attracted by the social stimuli, they respond less to their name and don’t like to look at other people or smile at them. With time they continue to resist the eye contact and usually cannot use simple movements to express their desires, such as pointing finger at things. Besides, they exhibit less social understanding and have unusual ways of responding to emotions.

Autistic children practically always have insufficient natural speech to explain their needs. They also usually display various forms of restricted or repetitive behavior, such as stereotypy (body rocking, hand flapping, head rolling, etc.), sameness (resistance to any kind of change), self-injury (head banging, eye poking, hand biting, skin picking, etc.), compulsive behavior (arranging of objects in lines or stacks), restricted behavior (preoccupation with single TV program, game or toy), ritualistic behavior (unvarying pattern of daily activities).

In order to successfully treat the disorder, it is necessary to diagnose it as early as possible and create facilitating and caring environment for a child. It is necessary that…