Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder.
According to DSM-5 (DSM-5, www.dsm5.org), people under the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) tend to have the following challenges:
1. Communication deficits
Finding it difficult to take hidden social cues
Misreading nonverbal interactions
Responding inappropriately to conversations
Find it difficult to see the bigger picture hence taking things more literal
2. Dependent on routines
Most of these individuals are structured, and they find comfort in having a fixed set of routines. Being unable to predict the following event would cause them anxiety leading to a meltdown when not equipped with coping strategies.
3. Highly sensitive to change in the environment
A change in light, sound, taste, smell, and touch in their environment might cause an over-stimulation (too much) in these individuals. When they feel overwhelmed, you might observe escaping behaviors, repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand flapping, body rocking, verbal stimming, etc.), or sometimes a meltdown.
With that said, some individuals with ASD can also be under-stimulated (lack of). Some examples include but not limited to, finding the need to put objects (e.g., toy, paper, sand, etc.) in their mouth, excessive drooling, and tiptoeing when walking.
4. Intensely focused on inappropriate items
One might observe that these individuals might have a liking for a particular toy, game, object, subject or person, etc., and find it difficult to separate themselves from it.
Take, for example, an individual with ASD who enjoys observing numbers go up and down the lift might display resistance in exiting the elevator or the mall. ** With that said, these symptoms do fall on a spectrum, with some of them having milder symptoms while others might have their symptoms displayed more severely. Ultimately our goal is to fight the symptoms of ASD, not the person.
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