The different symptoms of autism
- Impaired social interaction and communication
- Difficulty developing, maintaining and understanding social relationships
- Deficits in non-verbal communication
- Deficits in social or emotional reciprocity
- Restricted and repetitive behaviour or interests
- Repetitive or stereotyped movements or language
- Intolerance to change, inflexible adherence to routines
- Restricted interests, abnormal in intensity or purpose
pervasive over- or under-reactivity to sensory stimuli - The signs of autism are present from very early childhood, but they are not necessarily apparent until the social demands exceed the person’s abilities. This can lead to a later diagnosis.
But the signs of autism never appear in adolescence or adulthood if they were not present.
For a diagnosis to be made, the signs must have an impact on the person’s functioning.
ASD manifests itself through signs in two main areas:
- Social interaction and communication
- Behaviour and interests
- Impaired social interaction and communication
- Difficulty developing, maintaining and understanding social relationships
- Deficits in non-verbal communication
- Deficit in social or emotional reciprocity
- Restricted and repetitive behaviour or interests
- Repetitive or stereotyped movements or language
- Intolerance to change, inflexible adherence to routines
- Restricted interests, abnormal in intensity or purpose
pervasive hyper- or hypo-reactivity to sensory stimuli
At the Paris Brain Institute
The team co-directed by Mathias PESSIGLIONE, an Inserm researcher, in collaboration with a Canadian team, studied mimetic desire in autistic people, which could explain the alteration in their social interactions and motivation.
Mimetic desire corresponds to the spontaneous tendency to desire the same things as others, for example for children the same toy as their classmate.
People with ASD are often disorientated by changes in their environment, such as the arrangement of furniture at home or a change of teacher at school. They often exhibit repetitive behaviours such as rocking or clapping. Repetitive patterns can also be observed, such as eating the same food at every meal or watching the same video every day.
Children and adults with autism may have very specific, narrow and sometimes strange interests, such as electric motors, bin bags or traffic signs.
Symptoms related to the 5 senses may manifest as hyper- or hypo-reactivity to smell, cold or pain.
People with autism frequently have one or more associated disorders (mental disorders or other disorders, e.g. cardiac, neurological, etc.).
Around a third of people with autism have an intellectual development disorder (i.e. an IQ <70).
It is estimated that 1 in 5 people with autism suffers from epilepsy.
Some patients have extreme, highly focused and specialised abilities, such as a strong aptitude for mental arithmetic or an absolute ear. But these abilities are rare and do not form part of the diagnostic criteria.