Autism Spectrum Disorder Autism is a brain development disorder that a child is usually born with. The disorder was first described in 1943 (Goldman, 2003, p.852). It is know to affect about 1 in 1000 people in the U.S and is more common in males than in females (Goldman, 2003, p.852). The symptoms are very widely ranged. In general, there is failure to develop language and communication skills, unable to form normal social relation ships, and a need to follow a routine.
Symptoms
Many children show symptoms from birth. They might arch their back while holding them to avoid any physical contact with the person holding them. Other children appear normal until about 12-18 months (Goldman, 2003, p.853).about half of parents start to …show more content…

Ritualistic behavior, closely related to sameness, involved performing daily activity or daily routines all the same way every time. An example of that would be the person is getting dressed and they will only do it a specific way and will not vary in any way. Another symptom is self-injury, which the child does movements that do cause injury and in any way could cause injury or pain. The person could continually bite themselves or pinch themselves caused pain(Arman, 2007, p.10).
Causes
Autism could be caused by several different ways. The main way a child ends up with autism would be hereditary and scientist are still not sure exactly which genes or gene are responsible (Freitag, 2007, p.214). Scientist can not trace it to a single gene or single chromosome, but there may be interactions among mutations between several genes causing this disorder. In some cases they are associated with agents that cause birth defects (Rodie, 2005, p.119). Another cause have been proposed but has not been proven through scientific evidence and that is exposure to vaccines.
Other Types Autism is one the five pervasive developmental disorders, which are characterized by widespread abnormalities of social interaction, communication, severely restricted interest, and highly repetitive behavior (World Health Organization, 2006, p.1). Another pervasive development disorder is Asperger syndrome which closely relates to