Autism is simply a Neurological Development Disorder 1that has its ups and downs. Having a piece of in-depth knowledge about its repercussions can build a two-way bridge connecting and mending the gap in understanding one another and give a chance to alter the upcoming future of autism illiberality: Get to know more through these 30 Autism facts you need to open your mind with.
1. Autism a Disorder, Basic Autism Facts.
Autism2 is simply a neurological development disorder NOT an illness. A fact that we all know precisely but tend to overlook without respite. A disorder is something a person is functionally lacking resulting in normal disturbance and rendering them into who they are. Making it a challenge for commoners to accept them how they are without expecting them to change their behavior or characteristics.
2. Intellectual disability Autism Misconception
As earlier presumptions are made in every disorder. Intellectual disability is one of the autism presumptions made on preconceived notions. 40% of autism spectrum disorder children and adults have an intellectual disability. That too is the symptoms of earlier autism spectrum disorder. Neurotypicals (a term for common people in the autism community) have exaggerated intellectual disability so much that it’s associated with every autistic person. Just like not every person can be or can not be intelligent in common peers, it’s just as same in the autism crowd.
Here you will find the list of the top 15 famous people with ADHD.
3. Confusion between honesty and lying
People diagnosed with Autism are often considered to be uncivil. They convey more honesty than average. One of the parts of their other developmental disabilities is high cognitive thinking. Some have issues with lying, and can’t lie easily as they can’t grasp the concept of lying as easily as honesty. Have difficulty comprehending the human behavior of asking questions they don’t want answers to. Counter-intuitive is the purpose behind people asking a question that is not commonly interpreted by neurotypicals and we expect Autistics to understand.
4. Early intervention services
Lacking social skills is another developmental disability in autism spectrum disorder. Largely misunderstood to be as emotionless and cold. Early intervention can prevent this from happening and enhance the theory of mind, its ability to empathize, love and be loved, communicate, and brainstorm with the effective people or confidants. Overcoming disorders like bipolar disorder, digestive disorders, mental disorders, sleeping disorders, seizure disorders and feeding disorders.
5. Variation from Mild to Severe
We need to make this fact crystal clear that autism spectrum disorder 3(ASD) symptoms vary from person to person. Some may have mild symptoms, others may have moderate and some can have severe symptoms. Young adults have many times had to be a target of some stupid acquisitions like they are not normal enough to be neurotypical or that they are not autistic enough for us to notice any difference. Come on gimme a break and them too!
6. No Gender Differentiation
I’m surprised this needs to be stated as a fact about autism! I mean what are we talking about here some kind of an accessory? The assumption of only boys or males are diagnosed with Autism is irrelevant. There’s a statistical fact that for every 4% of males, a female is diagnosed. Medical detection is delayed as developmental disabilities are matured later in females than in males.
7. No Diagnosis without Substantial Evidence.
Once again I have to state something as a fact that should be common sense. How can you state a person has autism spectrum disorder if they are not reliably diagnosed? Evidence-based psychosocial interventions and applied behavioral analysis are the primary symptom factors that need to be considered.
8. Sensitive Behaviour towards.
Autism facts include basic symptoms regarding sensitivity towards intense light, sounds, images, sensations, movements, colors and people too. Intense environmental factors and social factors make Autistics explode. It becomes impossible for them to handle too much of anything. Too much light, bright colors cause them to have breakdowns or meltdowns.
9. Insensitivity heights.
One of the unusual facts about autism is its insensitivity to pain and climatic conditions. Their insensitivity to pain goes to an extent where they don’t realize even if they had a fracture. It might get detected along with a duration of 2-3 months. They wear shorts during extreme winter is the extent of their insensitivity towards climatic conditions. Can you imagine yourself in any of these scenarios?
10. Sensory integration dysfunction
Autism spectrum disorder symptoms have sensory integration dysfunction. Heightened sense of hearing and smell. A person with autism spectrum disorder can hear light noise that is inaudible to common ears. They have such a heightened sense of smell that they can rectify a highly cologned person from a mile away. Sensory dysfunction makes it difficult for them to interpret and organize what they see, hear, touch and smell.
11. Extraordinary “superpowers”.
Due to early intervention and healthy development people with autism spectrum disorder have had to go through significant challenges. Their brain development because of neurological disorders has been potentiated in a certain way and compensated for other deficits. An article by Michael Ullman and Mariel Pullman states that just as a Blind person can read and write learning the sense of touch in the same manner an autistic person’s brain compensates for the part of the brain that’s damaged by the other part. Declarative memory- a single brain system that compensates for numerous and complex deficits in autism and neurological disorders. Results in them having remarkable memory.
12. Social Interaction disability.
People with autism have difficulty in intercepting social settings, skills and norms. The art of subtly is an unknown concept in their dictionary. Behavioral interventions oppose them from understanding people’s emotions. Young adults have a hard time interpreting the other person’s facial expressions, body language and eye contact. This makes them immune to hints and subtle actions.
13. Brain Developmental milestones
Having exceptional observation skills and rote memory is the byproduct of brain neurology developmental regression. Having a peculiar sense of humor. Autistic people tend to be more humorous than they intend. Having an intense ability to express joy/emotions.
14. Autism spectrum disorder quirks
It’s normal for a common person to have some unusual quirks. That’s what makes every human different from the other. Autism spectrum disorder has its own set of quirks. Switching between things or topics quickly without even realizing it. Continuously repeating certain words and making weird noises in a public setting can be a nuisance to the crowd. Anything out of routine upsets the behavior pattern and creates chaos. A keen interest in knowing everything there is to know.
15. Social communication drawbacks
Autism spectrum disorder (asd affects) people to socially interact with socioeconomic groups with great difficulty. Childhood disintegrative disorder and behavioral treatment generally appear to remove people with asd from this predicament. Their disorder renders them helpless in interacting with a lot of people at once. Focusing on one thing at a time is how they process so they usually tend to avoid social communication, gathering and parties. Brain developing disorders interfere with conscious cognitive thinking disabling them from knowing the right amount of eye contact. Don’t we know how we behave with someone who stares for a long time?
16. Food Intake disorder
ARFID- Avoidant or Restrictive food intake disorder4. A disorder that children with autism have to endure. Parents along with children affected have no diagnostic and statistical manual to overcome all the deficits and phenomena of autism spectrum disorder resulting in accomplishing daily living skills a task in itself.
17. Cognitive impairments
One of the parts of their developmental disability is high cognitive thinking making it difficult in differentiating between normal talks. Autistics usually ‘script’ their conversations as they can’t hold up their conversations with normal people. Cognitive impairment blocks them from understanding the reasoning behind people doing a certain thing or action.
18. Brain Plasticity, Not an Option.
Let’s get one of these facts about autism in our minds fixed. Autism spectrum disorder is a neurological dysfunction. Brain plasticity means altering your neural network’s ability to change and rewired in a certain way. There’s no way we can use this as an excuse for insisting people with autism alter or cure their ways. For example, it’s just like saying a person to try flying and they can if they just try harder. Autistic people cannot cure themselves if they just try harder.
19. Passion and Obsession
Passion and Obsession are typically the same things for autistic people. Passion is driven and obsession is compulsion towards a thing. Neurological disorders make comprehending this difference a bit difficult for autism spectrum disorder people. All they can bifurcate is passion has a positive approach and obsession has a negative approach.
20. Assault Statistical Data
No specific data but autism statistics state out of all people with ASD 83% of women, and 32% of men have experienced sexual assault. Autistic symptoms generally appear to chop off the simple ability to oppose and defend resulting in negative behavioral development.
21. Life span stats
In 2021, research by CDC states that according to the general population approximately 1 in 44 children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). People with autism have an early diagnosis but in later stages in life are having a hard time dealing with their disabilities and are more likely to be diagnosed with psychological problems too. Autism people typically die 12-30 years younger than average people due to vulnerability and heartbrokenness towards certain stages of life.
22. Suicide demographics
According to a recent study, 14% of people with autism commit suicide compared to every 0.5% neurotypical. 30-50 % of autistic males commit suicide compared to every 6% male of the general population.
23. Black and White thinkers
A pattern in the thinking process that differentiates between right and wrong with absolute firm conviction. It is a tendency to see extremes in everything no category is excluded. There is no in-between path to follow, it’s either wrong or right. An autistic person fails at thinking to dichotomize both the positive and negative aspects of the cohesive whole.
24. Whitewash Autism
Becoming indifferent toward something doesn’t make it disappear. It’s there just brewing in the back with all the negative sources of energy. ‘Whitewashing Autism’ is the same as ignoring and not accepting the nuance of this aspect of autism. It’s just a question of survival instinct in both Autistics and neurotypicals.
25. Professor Morton Grensbacher’s study
Morton Ann Grensbacher is a Research Professor and Professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Motivated by the diagnosis of her son’s autism, researched the cognitive and neurological processes of an autistic person. Her study states that speech difficulties are the result of motor planning challenges not from social impairment and intellectual disability.
26. Mindblindness in Autism
Autistic people often have difficulty appropriately responding to others’ emotional expressions. This is “mind-blindness”. Autistic people may lack a normal sense of empathy towards other person’s feelings and thinking. Research proves it to be incorrect. Early childhood with autism spectrum disorder makes them aware of certain social norms that they try their best to follow.
27. Deviated response
Humans are instinctive beings with a structured path and pattern to follow. We ought to think about ourselves to be rational, adaptable, open-minded and with a broad mindset but our social communication is like a jungle tour into the dark on a designated road. Our mind follows a precise instinctual path that we are unaware of. Breaking of or occurring sudden incidents from the instinctual pattern might call attention to it, and this would cause our behavior to be unaccepting, disgusted or angry.
28. Genetic factor’s involvement
Fragile x syndrome5 and Autism spectrum disorder both may have some genetic factors involved within. Autism is not caused due to parental behavior, adolescent or adult stress, toxins, vaccines, environmental pollution and poisons, etc. No single cause is involved, multiple causes work together in leading to disorder.
29. Curing autism prevalence
Just like Autism is not caused due to external factors but rather by genetic factors. Likewise, bleach, high doses of antibiotics, and any other highly touted and dangerous cures for autism are bogus, promulgated by charlatans are harmful to autistics.
30. Medical expenditures
The medical expenditure recorded as of 2022, on average through childhood autism costs can exceed up to Rs.45,00,000 per year on health care, parents’ lost wages, and special education expenses. Under section 80DD, 80U disabled can claim a deduction on tax saving up to Rs.1.25 lakh.
The online titter-tatter and chattering about autism is meaningless and serves no one, especially people with Autism Spectrum Disorder. They don’t expect from anyone or depend on anyone for anything. They already have too much vulnerability uprooted from developing Autism Spectrum Disorder. All we can give them is just some amount of consideration and a break from repetitive behaviors of indifference.
- Xiong, Juan, et al. “Neurological diseases with autism spectrum disorder: Role of ASD risk genes.” Frontiers in neuroscience 13 (2019): 349. ↩︎
- Baron‐Cohen, Simon. “Autism: the empathizing–systemizing (E‐S) theory.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1156.1 (2009): 68-80. ↩︎
- Lord, Catherine, et al. “Autism spectrum disorder.” The lancet 392.10146 (2018): 508-520. ↩︎
- Bourne, Laura, et al. “Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder: A systematic scoping review of the current literature.” Psychiatry Research 288 (2020): 112961. ↩︎
- Garber, Kathryn B., Jeannie Visootsak, and Stephen T. Warren. “Fragile X syndrome.” European journal of human genetics 16.6 (2008): 666-672. ↩︎
Last Updated on by Namrata