Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Question 1

Be able to describe the history of ASD and describe its three key symptoms

Answer 1

• originally described by the Swiss psychiatrist in 1911, “withdrawal from the social fabric into oneself” charactoristics of schizophrenia.
  -autism, coming from the greek word “autos”
  Leo Kanner (1943) psychiatrist and Hans Asperger (1944) grouped children who had similar features
  1. a poverty if reciprocal social interaction 2. difficulty with pragmatic communication, 3. restricted and repetitive behaviours and interests
  both doctors also noted differences in children`s sensory perception of certain textures, tastes, odors and intolerance to certain sounds.

Question 2

Describe the two core symptoms for a diagnosis of ASD and problems associated with changes to the diagnostic criteria that occurred in association with revisions to the DSM

Answer 2

the severity of symptoms ranges along a continuum form incapacitating impairment to mild personality traits;

A; persistent deficits in social communication and interaction across contexts, not accounted for by general developmental delays
B; restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities. For the first time sensory difficulties: hypo or hypersensitivity to aspect of the environment, is explicitly included in the diagnostic criteria
C that symptoms though present in childhood may not become obvious until social demands exceed underlying deficiencies, this is not age-limited
D. Additionally, the requirement of a delay in language development is no longer necessary for a diagnosis.
Furthermore, the DSM-5 includes a severity-level descriptor to capture the contiunuum or “spectrum” nature of ASD ranging from severe through moderate, to mild.

Question 3

Describe the prevalence rates of ASD, the male bias in prevalence, and the theories offered to account for the bias.

Answer 3

more common in males then females, sex ratio of 4:1 in 2006, rising to 9:1 in higher functioning samples 2011.
in clinical prpulations, females with ASD, on average report lower IQ than males with ASD.
-Females with ASD may be more intellectually-impaired then males, which suggest that females may require a higher threshold of genetic vulnerability to be affected and would therefore be affected less often but more severely. (studies have contradicted this)

another explanation is that females may just be better at camouflaging their difficulties which would place her under the radar when compared to the more ASD male typical phenotype.

their may also be biological reasons for the males bias in ASD, the extreme male brain theory (EMB) (Simon) that typical females possess a stronger drive to empathize, while males on average have a stronger capacity towards systemizing.

• foetal testosterone (biological factor) high levels of testosterone prenatally could be a risk factor for ASD
• research has confirmed a correlation between higher FT levels and an increase in autistic trais; a negative correlation between FT and social domains, and a positive correlation with non-social domains acress development. taken together, these findings suggest an “organizational” sexually-dimorphic role of Ft on brain development involved in shaping the neural mechanisms underlying communicative development.

Question 4

Explain the main theories used to explain autism

Answer 4

theory of mind; in impaired ability to understand others knowledge an beliefs such a person would be socially impoverished and communicatively egocentric in the perspectives.

Executive Functioning;
deficits, the ability that allows one to maintain an appropriate problem-solving repertoire of component mental-processes with the purpose for some future goal-attainment. children become severely distressed with change in the environment, demonstrate a perseverative, restricted and stereotypical behaviour, taken to indicate a mental inflexibility, in addition to impaired inhibition a prepotent response.

Central Coherence; is a perceptual-conceptual ability that enables one to see the bigger picture and extract the “gist” and gestalt in information-processing.
- a poor ability to process information holistically when such is called for, but rather to process stimuli in a fragmented style.