subject: Autism Symptoms and Treatments - Discover Its REAL Hard Truth [print this page] Autism Symptoms and Treatments - Discover Its REAL Hard Truth
Since autism was first added to the psychiatric literature about fifty years ago, there have been numerous studies and theories about its causes. Researchers still have not reached agreement regarding its specific causes. First, it must be recognized that autism is a set of a wide variety of symptoms and may have many causes. This concept is not unusual in medicine. For instance, the set of symptoms that we perceive of as a "cold" can be caused by literally hundreds of different viruses, bacteria, and even our own immune system.
Although some remain convinced that certain vaccines, vaccine preservatives or medications taken to treat side effects of vaccines that may cause autism, conventional wisdom continues to agree that immunizations do not cause autism.
Autism is thought to be a biologically-based disorder. In the past, some researchers had suggested that autism was the result of poor attachment skills on the part of the mother. This belief has caused a great deal of unnecessary pain and guilt on the part of the parents of children with autism, when in fact, the inability of the individual with autism to interact appropriately is one of the key symptoms of this developmental disorder.
In support of a biological theory of autism, several known neurological disorders are associated with autistic features. Autism is one of the symptoms of these disorders. These conditions include:
tuberous sclerosis and the fragile X syndrome (inherited disorder;
cerebral dysgenesis (abnormal development of the brain);
Rett syndrome (a mutation of a single gene); and
some of the inborn errors of metabolism (biochemical defects).
Autism, in short, seems to be the end result or "final common pathway" of numerous disorders that affect brain development. Also, brain studies have demonstrated that persons with autism tend to have a number of abnormalities in brain size. In general, however, when clinicians make the diagnosis of autism, they are excluding the known causes of autistic behaviors. However, as the knowledge of conditions that cause autism advances, fewer and fewer cases will likely be thought of as being "pure" autism and more individuals will be identified as having autism due to specific causes.
There is a strong association between autism and seizures. This association works in two ways: First, many patients (20% to 30%) with autism develop seizures. Second, patients with seizures, which are probably due to other causes, may develop autistic-like behaviors. One special and often misunderstood association between autism and seizures is the Landau-Kleffner Syndrome. This syndrome is also known as acquired epileptic aphasia. Some children with epilepsy develop a sudden loss of language skills--especially receptive language (the ability to understand). Many often also develop the symptoms of autism.
