Category Archives: Autism

What is Autism? What Causes Autism? – Medical News Today

knowledge center home autism all about autism what is autism?

Autism is known as a complex developmental disability. Experts believe that Autism presents itself during the first three years of a person's life. The condition is the result of a neurological disorder that has an effect on normal brain function, affecting development of the person's communication and social interaction skills.

People with autism have issues with non-verbal communication, a wide range of social interactions, and activities that include an element of play and/or banter.

Genomic research is beginning to discover that people with autism spectrum disorders probably share genetic traits with individuals with ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder), bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or clinical depression. A team at the Cross Disorders Group of the Psychiatric Genomic Consortium suggests that the five mental disorders and illnesses have the same common inherited genetic variations.

ASD stands for Autism Spectrum Disorder and can sometimes be referred to as Autistic Spectrum Disorder. In this text Autism and ASD mean the same. ASDs are any developmental disabilities that have been caused by a brain abnormality. A person with an ASD typically has difficulty with social and communication skills.

A person with ASD will typically also prefer to stick to a set of behaviors and will resist any major (and many minor) changes to daily activities. Several relatives and friends of people with ASDs have commented that if the person knows a change is coming in advance, and has time to prepare for it; the resistance to the change is either gone completely or is much lower.

Autism (or ASD) is a wide-spectrum disorder. This means that no two people with autism will have exactly the same symptoms. As well as experiencing varying combinations of symptoms, some people will have mild symptoms while others will have severe ones. Below is a list of the most commonly found characteristics identified among people with an ASD.

The way in which a person with an ASD interacts with another individual is quite different compared to how the rest of the population behaves. If the symptoms are not severe, the person with ASD may seem socially clumsy, sometimes offensive in his/her comments, or out of synch with everyone else. If the symptoms are more severe, the person may seem not to be interested in other people at all.

It is common for relatives, friends and people who interact with someone with an ASD to comment that the ASD sufferer makes very little eye contact. However, as health care professionals, teachers and others are improving their ability to detect signs of autism at an earlier age than before, eye contact among people with autism is improving. In many cases, if the symptoms are not severe, the person can be taught that eye contact is important for most people and he/she will remember to look people in the eye.

A person with autism may often miss the cues we give each other when we want to catch somebody's attention. The person with ASD might not know that somebody is trying to talk to them. They may also be very interested in talking to a particular person or group of people, but does not have the same skills as others to become fully involved. To put it more simply, they lack the necessary playing and talking skills.

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What is Autism? What Causes Autism? - Medical News Today

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CDC | Facts | Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) | NCBDDD

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that can cause significant social, communication and behavioral challenges. There is often nothing about how people with ASD look that sets them apart from other people, but people with ASD may communicate, interact, behave, and learn in ways that are different from most other people. The learning, thinking, and problem-solving abilities of people with ASD can range from gifted to severely challenged. Some people with ASD need a lot of help in their daily lives; others need less.

A diagnosis of ASD now includes several conditions that used to be diagnosed separately: autistic disorder, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), and Asperger syndrome. These conditions are now all called autism spectrum disorder.

People with ASD often have problems with social, emotional, and communication skills. They might repeat certain behaviors and might not want change in their daily activities. Many people with ASD also have different ways of learning, paying attention, or reacting to things. Signs of ASD begin during early childhood and typically last throughout a persons life.

Children or adults with ASD might:

Learn more about symptoms

Learn about developmental milestones that young children should reach

Diagnosing ASD can be difficult since there is no medical test, like a blood test, to diagnose the disorders. Doctors look at the childs behavior and development to make a diagnosis.

ASD can sometimes be detected at 18 months or younger. By age 2, a diagnosis by an experienced professional can be considered very reliable.1 However, many children do not receive a final diagnosis until much older. This delay means that children with ASD might not get the early help they need.

Learn more about diagnosis

There is currently no cure for ASD. However, research shows that early intervention treatment services can improve a childs development.2, 3 Early intervention services help children from birth to 3 years old (36 months) learn important skills. Services can include therapy to help the child talk, walk, and interact with others. Therefore, it is important to talk to your childs doctor as soon as possible if you think your child has ASD or other developmental problem.

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CDC | Facts | Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) | NCBDDD

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Age of Autism

No colonial power is going to succeed unless its going to play on existing divisions, and sharpen them, increase them, exacerbate them. ~Mahmood Mamdani,Uganda Rising

Read Part 1, Part 2 , Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and Part 7.

By Adriana Gamondes

McRevolutions, Resources and Panoptic Optics

In looking at the pattern of global philanthropy in the buildup towards Western intervention in resource-rich nations around the world, connections cant be forced. The substantiations are often hidden in closed door meetings and on the ground among populations the media, largely controlled by those pushing particular agendas, mostly ignores. But even so, certain patterns emerge in the shadows.

For instance, the map illustration from the lead article in this series simply compared GAVI target countries with oil operations and US military expansion using a map provided by Tom Dispatch from an article by Nick Turse, AFRICOMs Gigantic Small Footprint:

Heres a question for you: Can a military tiptoe onto a continent? It seems the unlikeliest of images, and yet its a reasonable enough description of what the U.S. military has been doing ever since the Pentagon created an Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2007. Its been slipping, sneaking, creeping into Africa, deploying ever more forces in ever more ways doing ever more things at ever more facilities in ever more countries -- and in a fashion so quiet, so covert, that just about no American has any idea this is going on. One day, when an already destabilizing Africa explodes into various forms of violence, the U.S. military will be in the middle of it and Americans will suddenly wonder how in the world this could have happened.

Mali

The fact that medical philanthropy often tiptoes in prior to invasions for resources might demonstrate, at least in part, how in the world this could have happened. In order to avoid exaggerating associations between events through blatant examples like Ebola outbreaks and the US boots on the ground that followed, and because sometimes, as Turse puts it, to see the big picture you need to focus on the smallest part of it, I raked over several seemingly random news items for countries which are mostly obscure to Westerners such as Mali. Most dont even know where Mali is much less the countrys history or what the US is currently doing there. But the stories I ran across took a certain shape: the a rash of experimental trials for Ebola, HPV, rotavirus and other vaccines and the Gates Foundations involvement; a US-facilitated coup dtat in 2012 and finally an industry-centric view of civil disorder as an impediment to oil and gas exploration in that country.

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Age of Autism