Autism Research Report Autism Research Project Final | Page 22

The degree of severity in Autistics differs from person to
person just like us, we as an individual are different from
other people but we don’t call ourselves Autistic and
medically we are not Autistic because we don’t qualify
to all the symptoms. Even though medical science only
prove people to be autistic with some specific symptoms
after detailed diagnosis but medical science has no term
for people like us who do not fit in that specific criteria.
Following are some common characteristic that most
Autistic people show:
• Severe delays in language development
Language developmental in their case is slow and there
are chances that some people don’t develop language
and verbal communication at all. But there are other
kids as well who don’t start their speech till the time they
should. There are kids who are shy from trying something
new so it takes them time to open up to something big
like trying and learning speech. We cannot ignore the
individuals who cannot speak at all. All the mute people
around do not develop their language at all. Some kids
stammer when they speak, it’s not that they didn’t just
developed speech late than expected but when they do
they still have brakes in their words. They are typical with
just trouble in speech. But we don’t call those kids who
are shy, stammering and mute kids autistic.
• Severe delays in understanding social relationships
Autistic kids often avoids eye contact, resists being picked
up, and seems to “tune out” the world around them.
In other world they love to stay in their own world and
avoid excessive social attraction. Isn’t that what shy and
introverts do? Somewhere we all need some time to think
and work and that’s when we create a bubble around
ourselves in which we don’t allow people to enter. Shy
and introverts even adding Ambiverts don’t open up to a
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lot of people, in a big social gathering they don’t open up
to a lot of people and find their comfort in things they love
and don’t feel like having a chat with people around them.
But we don’t call shy people, introverts and ambiverts by
the term Autistic.
• Inconsistent Patterns of Sensory Responses
The individual with Autism may appear to be deaf and fail
to respond to words or other sounds. At times the same
individual may show extreme distress to sounds like dog
barking or vacuum cleaners. Autistic individual sometimes
show apparent insensitivity towards hot and cold or may
over react to these. In short they react pretty different
to sensory actions. How many times it has happened
with the kids at our place that parents keep telling their
child that they should stay away from hot tea/coffee and
kids still go on taking a sip or touching the hot cup until
they actually get a burn or feel the pain of that burning
sensation to which they learn what not to do next time.
The kid who doesn’t agree on the instructions laid by his/
her parents is not called Autistic but called a kid who don’t
know. We all have kids around us, some are parents,
some have immediate siblings, some have cousins, some
have niece or nephews. If we are patient enough to keep
trying to tell them what’s right and wrong then why can’t
we do the same with Autistic kids who are just taking a
little more time to get the concept. Things that irritates our
state of mind are supposedly called annoying, sometimes
we understand those things because there is not much
that can be done but at times we try to avoid those things
so we don’t kill our peace of mind and don’t mess up our
mood. There might be a lot of things that annoy us way
too much. Kids shouting over your head, babies crying
at a movie, tapping of pen and what not. Then why your
irritation is not termed as Autism.