Main content
Health and medicine
Course: Health and medicine > Unit 9
Lesson 11: Neurodevelopmental disorders- What is Down syndrome?
- What is ADHD?
- Intro to neurodevelopment milestones
- Neurodevelopmental disorders: Sufficient and necessary causes
- What is cerebral palsy and what causes it?
- Types of cerebral palsy part 1 - Spastic
- Types of cerebral palsy part 2 - Dyskinetic and ataxic
- Diagnosing cerebral palsy
- Managing cerebral palsy
- What is autism spectrum disorder?
- What is autism spectrum disorder?
- What is Tourette's?
- Diagnosing autism spectrum disorder
- Managing autism spectrum disorder
- What is asperger syndrome?
© 2023 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
What is autism spectrum disorder?
Visit us (http://www.khanacademy.org/science/healthcare-and-medicine) for health and medicine content or (http://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat) for MCAT related content.
These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any Khan Academy video. Created by Emma Giles.
Want to join the conversation?
- If someone has some symptoms of autism are they considered autistic?(3 votes)
- No, not necessarily. To be diagnosed with autism, one would have to exhibit two types of symptoms: social deficits (i.e. language delays, lack of eye contact, etc.) and repetitive patterns of behavior (hand flapping falls into this category, as well as repeating of certain words or phrases,etc.). Furthermore, these deficits must have been observed beginning at a very young age (2-3 years old) and be severe enough to impair functioning. Many of us have personality traits that could be autistic-like, but do not necessarily meet criteria for a diagnosis. Furthermore, many symptoms of ADHD are similar to symptoms of autism -- ADHD must be ruled out before a diagnosis of autism can be given.(7 votes)
- Are there any famous people (like actors, actresses, singers, etc.) with Autism?(2 votes)
- Yes, Adam Young also known as Owl city has autism.(5 votes)
- I have autism... it is weird because I am good with drawings/video game feelings (like when she drew the bored face) but i cant really tell with real people... is that normal?(3 votes)
- Yes. Some people have a more difficult time than others, but faces with emotions can be explained and understood. A trusted person is important to give coaching, but it can be a learned skill. This link is a game to help with this problem. This game shows that many autistic people have this problem. It is also possible to view videos or tv shows and talk about what emotions the actors were portraying. That is harder to do, start with the game, but that is why a trusted person, a parent, sibling or counselor is so important in learning these skills. http://www.autismgames.com.au/game_memotion.html(3 votes)
- Can Autism trigger other Mental Health problems?(3 votes)
- Autistic people face bullying and mistreatment all their lives long. The stigma on autism triggers many mental health problems.(3 votes)
- my brother has autism. he is 6 and can't talk or perform daily tasks,is there any way to help him(3 votes)
- My interests change almost throughout the years. Is that a part of autism?(3 votes)
- I have aspergers(a mild form of autism) and no it is not caused by autism.(2 votes)
- is it possible for someone to grow out of Autism? Someone I know has Autism and they-you could say- grew out of it. Will early intervention help a child with autism?(3 votes)
- A small number of children shed their symptoms and their diagnosis.(1 vote)
- I saw videos of children with autism specter disorder and some of them where trying to hurt themselves by hitting their head with their hands. Is there an explanation for this kind of behaviour?(2 votes)
- The self harm you were talking about can contribute to anxiety, confusion, or just plain anger for someone who can't communicate their feelings properly. This can go under Autism, but there is a spectrum and some people with the disorder don't do it.(3 votes)
- Could their response to certain stimuli be dangerous? And what I mean by that is this: One day little Jimmy was playing in the yard and accidentally steps on a very sharp nail and starts bleeding, would he not seriously respond to that and keep bleeding, or would he respond normally and do something like cry or run inside and call his mom?(2 votes)
- Their responses to a certain stimuli can be dangerous. In the situation you listed below, little Jimmy would not react to his certain situation because children with the autism spectrum disorder do not understand threats. Kids with autism show less fear than typical kids when in front of a situation. This can cause constant danger for children with autism.(2 votes)
- How many types of autism is there?(2 votes)
- Autism is a spectrum disorder, so technically there are as many types of autism as there are people with autism. There are some specific ranges on the spectrum, such as Asperger's Syndrome. There are also people with Atypical Autism (AKA autistic tendencies) who have symptoms of autism, but fail to fulfill the criteria that needs to be met for an official diagnoses (according to the DSM 5).(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] So autism spectrum disorder is a really broad social
disorder that affects the way that someone communicates and
interacts with other people. And the reason that I say
it's a really broad disorder, the reason we call it
a "spectrum disorder" is because each person with
autism spectrum disorder is affected a little differently. No two people with
autism spectrum disorder are exactly the same. So we say that different people with autism spectrum disorder
fall along a spectrum, and along this spectrum
there are different symptoms, different challenges
and different abilities that vary a lot in severity and vary a lot between different people with
autism spectrum disorder. So while this is a spectrum
disorder and everyone with autism spectrum disorder
has different experiences, there are a few key signs that are common among people with autism
spectrum disorder, and we're gonna check these
out so that we can understand a little bit more about what
autism spectrum disorder is. So there are a few different
ways that we could characterize these common signs of
autism spectrum disorder. I'm just gonna do it in this way, but there are some other
possible ways out there too. So first, let's pop down
communication and social signs. This will be our first category here. And next, we'll write
down behavioral signs. And then our last category, let's put responses to
environmental stimuli. Sort of just the way someone responds to things that they see or they encounter, and this will make more
sense as we get to it. All right, so let's start off by looking at this first category here,
communication and social signs. So, I'm gonna draw a face
here, and I'm gonna draw this expression here that's
supposed to look like boredom. Now, I'm no artist, so you might need to kinda use your imagination
here to see the boredom, but that's what it's supposed to be. So, for someone with
autism spectrum disorder, they might not really notice or pickup on this facial expression here and realize that this person is trying to
indicate that they're bored. They might have trouble
noticing these sorts of nonverbal cues that are
often used when people chat, so someone with autism spectrum disorder might continue a conversation
with this person here and not really pick up on this boredom, because aren't really aware
of this nonverbal cue, this facial expression that's
supposed to show boredom. So let's look at another nonverbal cue just so we get a better idea. So maybe instead of being
bored, this person might be, I don't know, getting a little
defensive for some reason, so let's cross their arms here like this, the way we sometimes do
when we're feeling defensive and this might be this person's way of showing that they're getting defensive about something in the conversation. And again, for someone with
autism spectrum disorder, they might not really
see this arm crossing as a sign of defensiveness. This nonverbal cue doesn't
really indicate to them that this person here
is feeling defensive, so they might continue
on with the conversation as though nothing is happening, because this arm crossing's not
really telling him anything. So maybe we can kinda
summarize this as trouble understanding the emotions
and behaviors of others. So this is one of the
types of communication and social signs that we see in someone with autism spectrum disorder. And again, keep in mind that
autism spectrum disorder is just that, it's a spectrum, so people might have
different degrees of trouble understanding the behaviors of others, maybe a little, maybe
a lot, it varies a lot between different people
with the disorder, but you can imagine here that if someone with autism spectrum
disorder doesn't quite see and read the emotions
and behaviors of others, if they don't quite understand
communication in the same way as people without autism
spectrum disorder do, well, this can make it
a little tricky for them to communicate with others, right? So for children with
autism spectrum disorder, they might not quite know
how to express themselves and communicate what they
need or what they want, so they might grab or scream
because they don't really have any other way to get what
they need or what they want, and for kids that are a bit older and have autism spectrum disorder, well, not really being able
to see or read the emotions of others and not really
being able to communicate in these sorts of ways themselves, this can make it a little tricky for them to connect with other people. So sometimes for people with
autism spectrum disorder, they might struggle to
fit into a group of people or maybe they just prefer
to hang out on their own. All right, so if move to
our next category here, we've got behavioral signs
of autism spectrum disorder. So to check out some of these, let's actually make a graph here showing different levels
of interest in activities, and stay with me here, it'll
make more sense as we go along. So let's make our y-axis of our graph here "level of interest" and we'll use this pink color here to draw what we might expect for a kid and we'll use this
green color here to draw what we might see for a kid
with autism spectrum disorder, and let's put a few different
activities down here. So we'll do that on our x-axis. So maybe we'll pop down activities
or interests like sports, maybe we'll pop down soccer
and horseback riding, and let's put down interest in
cars and playing with blocks. So these are some of our activites and we'll look at the
different levels of interest that we might expect kids
to have in these activities. So maybe for horseback riding here, we could kinda say that
we would expect a kid to be about this interested
in horseback riding. It's kinda arbitrary, but you know, some kids like horseback
riding, some kids don't, so let's put that about here. Now, for me, I loved horseback riding. I loved it way more than the average kid, so I'm just gonna put
down where I would be, which would be way up
here, way more interested than probably what you would
expect for the average kid. And if we look at soccer,
you know, lots of kids like soccer, but lots of
kids don't like soccer, but you might be more
likely to play soccer, maybe you play at a gym or
after school with your friends and that's maybe not so much the case with horseback riding, so maybe more kids like soccer than they do horseback riding. So maybe we'll say that
the level of interest that we might expect for soccer would be a little bit higher, so
let's put it up here. And cars, I mean, some kids are interested in cars, but some aren't. Maybe we'll put that a little bit lower than both soccer and horseback riding. And then playing with blocks, you know, a lot of kids dig playing with blocks. I'd say that's probably
a pretty common interest of a lot of kids, at
least at a younger age, so maybe we'll make that
the highest one here. So these are just some
hypothetical levels of interest that we would maybe expect from kids. So for kids with autism spectrum disorder, one of these signs, these
behavioral signs that we see, is what we call "restrictive behavior," and what we mean by that
is that their interest can be really restricted
or limited compared to what we might expect from
a child just in general, a kid without autism spectrum disorder, and when they do have an
interest in something, they can often be quite
a bit more interested than what we might expect in general. So maybe for someone with
autism spectrum disorder, they really don't show any
interest at all in any sports, not soccer, not horseback
riding, no sports, and they aren't really keen
on playing with blocks either, but they're really,
really, really into cars. They love anything to do with cars, so their interest level is way up here. Maybe if they were able to,
they would spend all day thinking and playing
and talking about cars. So we might say that their interests are kind of restricted to cars, and there's pretty much no
interest in any of these other hobbies, not even a little
bit, like we might expect. Now, trying to decide
whether kid's interests are really restrictive, that
can be a little subjective, a little hard to figure out. I remember when I was a
kid, I really didn't care about anything other
than horseback riding. My level of interest for
horses was way up here, way more than what you
would expect for a kid, so it is kinda hard to draw
the line on when the kid is being obsessive or
restrictive with their interests, but in general, people with
autism spectrum disorder have this sort of restrictiveness
with their interests. They might have an activity or two that they're extremely interested in and then show almost no interest
in any other activities. Now while we're under
this behavior category, we can also put down "repetitive behavior" as another kind of sign that people with autism spectrum disorder can have, and when we say "repetitive," what we mean are things like needing a lot of routine. So maybe a child with autism
spectrum disorder really needs to have the exact same meals everyday, or the same bedtime
rituals, or maybe they have a habit of repeating certain behaviors like lining up toys or
repeating certain words. These kinds of repetitive
behaviors are another sign that we can see in kids with
autism spectrum disorder. So let's head over to
our last category here, responses to environmental stimuli. Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let's make another graph here. We love graphs, so let's make our x-axis here the stimulus strength, and you'll see what I mean in a second, and we'll make our y-axis the responses that the child has to the stimulus. So maybe we'll make a
low strength stimulus, something like a dim light. It doesn't really excite too many people, a lot of might people
might not even notice it, and then something a little bit stronger would be a noise, maybe
like a car honking, and then we'll put down
a high strength stimulus as something like being squeezed really tightly by another person. So we would probably expect
a kid to respond the least to this dim light, our
low strength stimulus, and then respond a little bit more to this medium strength
stimulus, the car honking, and then respond the most to
this high strength stimulus of being squeezed really tight. So we can kind of make this line here. So we would expect that the
higher the stimulus strength, the greater the response, right? But it turns out that for a lot of kids with autism spectrum disorder, they don't necessarily
really follow this line. Some weak stimuli really,
really bother them, so maybe their response
would be kinda up here, but then for some strong stimuli, they don't really bother them at all, so maybe their response
would be kinda down here. So it really does vary which
stimuli evoke which responses, but in general, what we
see with a lot of kids with autism spectrum disorder is that they don't really follow
this expected line here. So everything we've looked at here, these aren't the only
signs that someone might be on the autism spectrum, but
hopefully now you can see that autism spectrum disorder is primarily a social interaction and
communication disorder.