The Welcome Packet

A Guidebook for Parents and Professionals
Prepared by 
F.E.A.T.  - Chattanooga

Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders

• Autism: Autism Society of America Definition (1997-present)

• A developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life.
• It results from a neurological abnormality and is often accompanied by associated disorders.
• Autism interferes with the normal functioning of the brain in the areas of reasoning, social interaction, and communication.
• Children and adults with autism typically have deficiencies in verbal and nonverbal communication,  social interactions and leisure or play activities.
• The disorder makes it hard for them to communicate with others and relating to the outside world.
• Children with autism may exhibit repeated body movements (hand-flapping, rocking), unusual responses to people or attachments to objects and resistance to changes in routine.
• In some cases, aggressive and/or self-injurious behavior may be present.
• It is conservatively estimated that nearly 400,000 people in the US today have some form of autism.
• Its prevalence rate now places it as the third most common developmental disability - more common than  Down Syndrome.

• PDD:  (Pervasive Development Disorder) DSM-IV, 1994

                     Any one of the following Disorders:

• Autistic Disorder
• Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
• Asperger's Disorder
• Rhett's Disorder 
• PDD-NOS
  
  

• ASD:   Autism Spectrum Disorders

• Refers to all of the subcategories of PDD as defined in the most  recent edition of the DSM-IV.

•   MSDD:  Multisystems Developmental Disorders

• Greenspan's term for those children with ASD who show good affect or the potential for good affect.

• LKS:  Landau-Kleffner Syndrome

• A communicative disorder which begins after a period of normal development and which  may result from sub-clinical seizure activity in the temporal lobe.   Children with this disability appear to experience a kind of word deafness.   When this happens during the first three years of life, the children's behavior  may resemble the behavior of children  with Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (DSM-IV, 1994).

• Hyperlexia

                A syndrome observed in children who have the following characteristics:

• Precocious ability to read words, far above what would be expected at the chronological age, or brain intense fascination with numbers or letters.
• Significant difficulty understanding verbal language.
• Abnormal social skills, including difficulty socializing and interacting appropriately with people  (American Hyperlexia Association, 1997).
• Note that many children with autism present with symptoms of hyperlexia, and that the DSM-IV (1994) does not distinguish hyperlexia as a separate syndrome.

Koenig 9/9/97