Question: What effect does autism have on a child's development?

Natalie Butcher answered on 18 Nov 2021:

Autism Spectrum Disorder is characterised by two areas of impairment which are used to diagnose it. The first is social communication deficits which includes;
a) Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, e.g. atypical social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect, failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.
b) Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviours used for social interaction e.g. poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication; abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures or a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.
c) Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understand relationships e.g. difficulties adjusting behaviour to suit social contexts; difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends or absence of interest in peers.

The second are that is effected is restricted / repetitive behaviours. They might have
a) Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).
b) Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behaviour (e.g. extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat same food every day).
c) Highly restricted, fixated interests that are atypical in intensity or focus (e.g. strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).
d) Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment (e.g. apparent indifference to pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement).

So ASD effects a child’s development in a number of ways. Children with ASD won’t always have all these characteristics but to be diagnosed they must display 1/3 in the first category and 2/4 in the second.