What is Autism?

Autism is a neurobiological (brain-based) disorder that is characterized by impairments or differences in three major areas of functioning:

Communication
Individuals with autism demonstrate differences in the development of their communication skills. These differences can be as severe as a total lack of development of or understanding of spoken language with no attempt to compensate through alternative modes of communication. If not lacking completely, many individuals with autism at least experience a significant delay in the development of spoken language skills. Some individuals with autism can develop adequate speech. However, their communication impairments are marked by their inability to initiate or sustain conversations with others. Other communication differences include stereotyped or repetitive use of language, and a lack of varied, spontaneous, make-believe, or social/imitative play appropriate to their developmental level.
Social Skills
Individuals with autism demonstrate deficits in social skills that range from complete lack of awareness of other people to difficulty forming and maintaining friendships with peers. Difficulties with social interactions can include failure to make eye contact with others as well as lack of ability to regulate or understand facial expressions, body postures, or gestures. Also, these difficulties can be demonstrated by a lack of social or emotional reciprocity (i.e. the “give and take” that comprises most social interactions between typically functioning individuals).
Restrictive, Repetitive and Stereotypic Patterns of Behavior, Interests, or Activities
Individuals with autism engage in patterns of behavior that are markedly different from those of their typically developing peers. These behavior patterns usually include things like abnormal preoccupations with one or more restricted patterns of interest (such as a nonverbal child who only wants to look at fuzzy things, or for a child with adequate speech who will only talk about trains). Aside from preoccupations, individuals with autism may be inflexible in their adherence to specific nonfunctional routines or rituals. They may be very resistant to change in how things are done. Additionally, individuals with autism may engage in a range of stereotyped and repetitive motor patterns, such as hand flapping, toe-walking, body twisting, whole-body movements, etc. Also, an individual with autism is likely to be preoccupied or drawn to parts of objects as opposed to the objects as a whole.

It is important to note that autism is considered a “spectrum disorder.” What this means is that autism’s effects range from very severe to very mild and anywhere in between. It is often said that an individual’s autism falls somewhere “along the autistic spectrum,” and each individual will have his or her own individual strengths and needs. However, regardless of where the individual’s strengths and needs fall in relation to the spectrum, all individuals with autism share the same qualitative features described in the bullets above, even if they manifest themselves to differing degrees of severity.