Know a child with autism

The parent of an autistic child, his family and friends, have an uneasy task ahead: to know and understand the child. The child, who may have reduced verbal abilities, may not be able to interact socially and may have problems which an ordinary person does not understand.

We are providing you a kind of a “blind map” of the child, which points out the most significant differences from ordinary children and will help you get at least a little orientated in the internal world of a small autistic child.

 

Intelligence


It was not long ago when autism was considered to be a disorder combined with mental retardation. That was especially because there were not any methods which would allow for studying the internal world of autistic people and the fundamentals of individual disorders. The bigger the diagnostic and methodology advances, the better the picture of autistic people. However, it is important to realize that the criteria, which we use to examine the intelligence quotient in ordinary people, do not apply to people with autism: people with autism do some IQ tests better that ordinary people, other tests they do worse.

Thanks to better diagnostics we have already known today that autism occurs in the entire IQ scale.

Better ability to evaluate nonverbal intelligence in children with reduced speech abilities and missing social motivation bears fruit: the percentage of autistic people with average and higher IQ is rising.

 

Emotions


 

Senses


The autism spectrum disorders often affect also the child’s senses. The intensity of sensory perception is the first level, and it may be very different from an ordinary person. Hyposensitivity (little sensitivity) and hypersensitivity (oversensitivity) are the typical manifestations of autism in the area of senses.

Senses exceeding to cognitive abilities are another level. Autistic people may think in pictures, in music, in movements or touches. It can happen that the autistic child will hear colours or formulate their thoughts in pictures and not in words.

When working with an autistic person it is therefore necessary to use as many ways of thinking as possible in various combinations and to apply also those ones which ordinary people cannot even imagine.

The brain processes all information which we receive through senses, it sorts them out and provides understanding of the information. Based on a stimulus we react through thoughts, feelings, behaviour (reaction) or combination hereof.

Senses of a person with autism

  • Examples of problem solving