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Autism Spectrum disorders including Asperger syndrome

What are the symptoms?

Affected children have difficulties in making sense of the social world and the subtleties of verbal and non verbal communication. They have difficulty understanding the feelings and emotions of other people and present with a restricted range of interests often with stereotyped repetitive behaviours. They may also experience odd responses to sensory stimuli. Approximately ten per cent of individuals with Autism may demonstrate an area of relative strengths/ability.

The spectrum includes individuals who are severely impaired with no useful speech, to those considered "high functioning". This latter term can be misleading in that an individual of "high" intellectual ability may be significantly impaired in terms of social skills. Disorders that currently exist within the international classification systems such as Asperger syndrome, Infantile Autism and Childhood Disintegrative disorder are considered to lie on the "spectrum".

View Background Background  |  What is the cause? View What is the cause?

Medical text written August 2006 by Dr C Dover, Specialist Registrar in Learning Disability Psychiatry, Dr C Grayson, Consultant Paediatrician and Professor A Le Couteur, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Trust, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

 

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