Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject Psychology -
Diagnostics, ( Atlantic International University ), language: English,
abstract: The general meaning of the term 'autism' stems from the root
words: aut meaning 'self' and ism meaning 'orientation or state'. The
overriding tendency is to be absorbed with oneself. The child's
thoughts, feelings and desires are governed by his internal
apprehensions of the world. The internal is not consonant with the world
of reality, giving the notion of pathology, wherein the individual sees
things in the form of fantasy or dreams, wishes or hopes, instead of in
terms of the reality that is common to others around him (Reber & Reber,
2001). In Berk (2000), autism is explained as impairment in emotional
and gestural (nonverbal) behaviours that are required for successful
social interactions. The language is delayed and stereotyped, with some
autistic children not speaking at all. Autism is believed to be highly
heritable; in the world of the autistic, words such as 'believe',
'think', 'know' and 'pretend' are seldom part of their vocabulary
(Happe, 1995). While autistic disorders probably do not have a single
cause (Rutter, 1978; Sue, Sue & Sue, 1997), variations of autism (autism
spectrum disorders) has been suggested to be the result of
neurodevelopmental anomalies in white-matter development (Ellis &
Gunter, 1999). Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a broad category of
conditions that share similar symptoms; it is often referred to as
pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) (Tilton, 2004).
