Autistic Spectrum Disorder (Child)

Symptoms of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (Child) include:

• Delayed speech and language development
• Difficulty expressing oneself or understanding others’ feelings or thoughts
• Have difficulty using and reading gestures, facial expressions and body language

• Tends to ignore people
• Most would show simple attachment to parents or caregivers
• Often active although socially odd
• Some may initiate contact but in an odd, awkward or inappropriate way
• Unable to play imaginatively with objects or toys or with other children and adults
• Display limited range of imaginative activities. Play tends to be copied, repetitive and stereotypic

• Simple stereotypic activities like flicking fingers, spinning themselves or car wheels, watching running electronic displays, rocking or head banging
• Complex stereotypic activities: lining things, repeated replays of CDs, using fixed routes and fixation with particular topics

• Intolerance to noise or certain textures, apparent insensitivity or over-response to pain, heat or cold.
• Uneven patterns of intellectual functioning: may have unique skills, for example in music, numbers and letters but overall developmental delay or mental retardation.