Individuals with autism experience varying degrees of some core characteristics. The severity of disability caused by these symptoms places the individual somewhere along the autistic spectrum. For this reason, autism is actually officially known as autism spectrum disorder, or ASD (Chevallier, Kohls, Troian, Brodkin, and Shultz, 2012). Autism spectrum disorder has recently become an umbrella over subtypes of autism which were previously categorized separately. ASD now refers to autistic disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, and Asperger syndrome. (Chevallier, Kohls, Troian, Brodkin, and Shultz, 2012). Along the autism spectrum, afflicted individuals all have different experiences based on their own unique combination of characteristics.
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Oversensitivity to sound may cause the individual to focus on a noise in the distance instead of a more immediate noise, such as another person attempting to engage them in conversation. It may also cause a normal noise to be overstimulating, causing the individual to react with extreme or abnormal behavior. The opposite is also possible, in which a person won’t have any reaction to a legitimately loud or surprising noise (Buitelaar, 1995). Sentences may be perceived incorrectly, registering as a blend of one really long word. Perceiving words correctly, and then actually processing them to have a meaning can be challenging. Such a delay makes it necessary to have concrete objects to connect to words in order to give them meaning. Everyone can recall the system under which they first learned to read in grade school; a flash card would be shown with a picture of an apple above bold text reading, “A- ahh -apple”. This system presents a concrete image, and connects it to the spelling of the word, which seems abstract to the new reader. For many autistic children, speaking through verbal communication must be taught with the same deliberate and repetitive nature, it does not always come naturally. The correlation between the movement of lips and the sounds they project is a concrete concept, while social clues such as facial expression are abstract. This is why autistic toddlers will focus on the correlation between consistent sounds and lip movements, rather than abstract social clues that are difficult for them to pick up on. For example, focus will remain on sounds projected as a mother’s lips move a certain way, rather than her smile. (Bower, 2009). Bruce Bower’s article (2009), discusses researcher Ami Klin’s recent study regarding the
Oversensitivity to sound may cause the individual to focus on a noise in the distance instead of a more immediate noise, such as another person attempting to engage them in conversation. It may also cause a normal noise to be overstimulating, causing the individual to react with extreme or abnormal behavior. The opposite is also possible, in which a person won’t have any reaction to a legitimately loud or surprising noise (Buitelaar, 1995). Sentences may be perceived incorrectly, registering as a blend of one really long word. Perceiving words correctly, and then actually processing them to have a meaning can be challenging. Such a delay makes it necessary to have concrete objects to connect to words in order to give them meaning. Everyone can recall the system under which they first learned to read in grade school; a flash card would be shown with a picture of an apple above bold text reading, “A- ahh -apple”. This system presents a concrete image, and connects it to the spelling of the word, which seems abstract to the new reader. For many autistic children, speaking through verbal communication must be taught with the same deliberate and repetitive nature, it does not always come naturally. The correlation between the movement of lips and the sounds they project is a concrete concept, while social clues such as facial expression are abstract. This is why autistic toddlers will focus on the correlation between consistent sounds and lip movements, rather than abstract social clues that are difficult for them to pick up on. For example, focus will remain on sounds projected as a mother’s lips move a certain way, rather than her smile. (Bower, 2009). Bruce Bower’s article (2009), discusses researcher Ami Klin’s recent study regarding the