What Is PDD Autism?

                

 

For a long time, many children with PDD (pervasive development disorders) went undiagnosed. These children were, for a time, labeled as shy, strange, or weird, when if fact they were suffering from a medical condition. PDD autism is something that has both new and old form, and some of the higher functioning children were the ones that were largely misunderstood. Thanks to new research and new information, some of these children can now go on to lead what would appear to be a ?normal? life.

The word normal is subjective, as what is normal for one child is not for another. Some with higher functioning PDD can often blend in with what is considered ?normal,? but at the same time, they believe that they are who they are because of their autism, and there are some who say they would not change that.

However, because they want to interact with those who do not have PDD, they do have to adjust. If PDD is identified early enough, there are many positive programs that can help these children to overcome some communication and socialization problems that are common with these autistic conditions.

The common characteristics of a child with PDD center around communication problems. These range in severity from not talking at all to having an extensive vocabulary. Some autistic children never speak, and prefer to use hand motions for communication. Others have problems with basic communication, but they can learn to use words to talk to the rest of the world. Those with large vocabularies may have problems because they often say the wrong things, and at times will take every word at the most literal sense, which can lead to confusion and problems with conversations.

Others PDD characteristics are to do with social settings. They want to interact with their peers, but they have many problems doing so. They are often thought to be painfully shy at first. They lack the skills to build the relationships that many of us take for granted. Some of this comes from communication barriers, and also from a lack of understanding.

They lack the ability to get and hold eye contact, and often say the wrong things. This can be very painful for them, and after a few attempts to make friends with their peers, they often show a preference to play alone. This is because the anxiety of peer relationships is too much for them, and they find more peace by being alone.

Quite often, PDD autism is noticed by age three. This is not true for all children, but holds true for a majority. Other signs are repetitive motions and play, tantrums that result from the tiniest disruption of their daily routine, occasional aggressive behavior (probably as a result of failed communication), and being too sensitive or not sensitive enough to outside stimulation. All children with PDD will have different symptoms and different levels of function. Early diagnosis is a great help, and can lead to a better quality of life on down the road for many with PDD.

By Rachel Evans. Sign up for a free newsletter for more information on autism. In the newsletter you'll find out more about the signs and symptoms of autism.

Signs And Symptoms Of Autism

                

 

Parents suspect an abnormality in their children?s development around 18 months but see a doctor at the age of 2 of the child and the autistic disorder's only diagnosed at about 3-4 years when the child patient a lack of communication skills, lack of interest for social interaction, playing difficulties and a tendency towards aggressiveness to others and to themselves. In the regressive type of autism, children develop normally until the age of 2 when a pregnant regression of all the gained skills occurs.

Autistic patients are extremely sensitive to signals like sounds, light, smells, touch or taste. A hypersensitivity of the skin is sometimes marked by the refusal of wearing clothes that might injure their skin. They resist changes in their routine environment and can become aggressive if parents or caretakers try to force them into something. They can get really nervous when pushed to wear clothes that itch their sensitive skin.

The development of communication skills is insufficient to allow them start and maintain conversations. Their language is slow or absent, some words are repeated many times without any significance, nonsense rhyming can be observed and the pronoun inversion is typical for the autistic disorder. The attention is very shortly concentrated and they tend to use gestures and signs instead of words for communication.

Autistic children are unable to understand other person?s emotions and cannot understand why they feel differently about certain things. They even show types of empathy when people seem to know things that are unknown to them. They often have difficulties in making friends and are mostly withdrawn in their own personal worlds showing no interest to happenings around them. They usually prefer spending the time on their own; pay almost no attention to smiles and eye-contact.

All autism sufferers tend to mouth objects or rub surfaces and are extremely sensitive to light, sound, smell and touch. They are usually immune to pain and show little response to high painful stimuli. Autistic children do not react to loud noises but are highly irritated by some regular sounds like the one made by the vacuum cleaner. Physical contact is mostly overwhelming or over stimulating for them and they refuse cuddling, touching and kissing.

They show no interest for imaginative play and usually tend to repeat the playing actions of other children. They tend to prefer solitary and rithualic games with repetitive actions. Their high need for sameness and refusal of normal persons around them are all very obvious. They have repetitive movements of the body and demonstrate perseveration in obsessive interests. They show lack of common sense, aggression to others or themselves and even an overactive or a passive behavior.

For greater resources on Autism or especially about autism symptoms checklist please click this link http://www.autism-info-center.com/autism-symptoms-checklist.htm

Autism and Intelligence

                

 

While the average IQ rate of the population seems to be about 100, patients with autism mostly have a decreased one due to the learning disability or creating the disabilities; some of the autistics though have shown a normal or even high IQ rate. From this reason many sufferers from the Asperger syndrome are able to lead a normal life.

The autistic disorder is usually diagnosed during childhood, especially around the age of 3-4 when parents notice an abnormal behavior in their children. Some children however can remain undiagnosed until the age of 12 and the medical treatment is mostly hard to begin at this age. Many autistic children are only diagnosed after going to school as they show their poor social skills or a challenging behavior. Especially patients with the milder form called Asperger syndrome can remain undiagnosed until later opportunities occur.

No exact method of autism diagnose is known. Still, doctors must firstly eliminate other conditions by performing hearing and blood tests. Autism is diagnosed by the close observation of the behavior, social skills and ability to communicate. Parents and specialists must work together to identify a possible autistic disorder. If suspicion of autism persists, the child will be seen by a group of specialists such as a pediatrician, a child psycho loge and psychiatrist, a speech therapist and an educational expert. Every autistic child must have his personal caretaker which will closely observe the patient?s assessment and progresses.

An appropriate treatment for autism includes education, special behavior and speech training and even medications in some cases. Children with autistic disorders require special care in an appropriate school environment or in regular schools with additional help if the symptoms are moderate. The progresses of the patients very much depend on a well organized structure of the classes and classrooms. Schools must also use methods to help the patients find new ways of expressing themselves.

An adequate behavior therapy can only be provided by a clinical psychologist and will help the family to better understand the child?s needs. Some neurovegetative abnormal actions can be controlled by medications. Autistic children have frequent outbursts of aggressiveness, obsessions, hyper agitation and hyperactivity of their behavior. Used for a longer period of time, these drugs can show dangerous side-effects like provoking obsessions and repetitive actions.

Other therapeutic approaches are known, but they are however not approved by medical organizations as their benefits are not been proven. Music therapies can help calming down the patients while symbols and pictures might improve the communication skills. Another unscientifically proved method of treating autism symptoms is the use of the Secretin hormone.

The autistic child requires permanent care and the parent will need another qualified persons to help with the child?s observation. Caretakers of patients with such disorders are also entitled to an allowance for disabilities.

For greater resources on Autism or especially about signs of autism please click this link http://www.autism-info-center.com/signs-of-autism.htm

'Broken Mirror' May Cause Autism

                

 

When observing and imitating emotions, children with autism display virtually no activity in a key part of the brain's mirror neuron system, according to new imaging research published in Nature Neuroscience.

The human brain has a matching system of observation and execution that causes mirror neurons to fire both when a person observes others performing a goal-directed action and when he or she carries out the same action. This is the neural mechanism that allows most people to automatically understand others' actions, intentions and emotions, neuroscientists believe.

But autism is characterized by difficulties with social interaction, including verbal and nonverbal communication, imitation and empathy. The new findings dramatically bolster a growing body of evidence pointing to a breakdown of the brain's mirror neuron system as the mechanism behind these symptoms.

Dysfunctional Mirror Neuron System

"Our findings suggest that a dysfunctional mirror neuron system may underlie the social deficits observed in autism," says Mirella Dapretto, lead author and assistant professor in residence of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

"Together with other recent data, our results provide strong support for a mirror neuron theory of autism. This is exciting because we finally have an account that can explain all core symptoms of this disorder," Dapretto adds.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity in 10 high-functioning children with autism while they imitated and observed 80 photos depicting different emotions, such as anger, fear, happiness or sadness. The brain activity of 10 typically developing children also was studied while they performed the same tasks.

All of the children rehearsed the tasks prior to the fMRI scans to assure researchers they could perform the tasks. Both groups performed equally well. Normal brain activity in areas of the brain involving sight and facial movements indicated that the children with autism remained on task during the fMRI scans.

The team assessed symptom severity of each autistic child with two independent measures: the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule-Generic, and the Autism Diagnostic Interview.

Reduced Activity in the Emotion Centers

Unlike the typically developing children, the autistic children showed virtually no activity in the part of the brain called the pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus, which has been identified as a key part of the mirror neuron system in previous research.

Importantly, the level of mirror neuron activity seen in children with autism was inversely related to symptom severity in the social domain.

Children with autism also showed reduced activity in the emotion centers of the brain, consistent with the hypothesis that this mirroring mechanism may play a crucial role for understanding how others feel and for empathizing with them.

Nicole Weaver is a health journalist for Daily News Central, an online publication that delivers breaking news and reliable health information to consumers, healthcare providers and industry professionals.