Syeda Munazza Ahmad

Behavioral and Psychological Characteristics of Autism Spectrum

Disorder

Some children on the spectrum are very severely affected in most or all domains of
everyday functioning, but others are only mildly affected. Although many children with
ASD behave in similar ways, any two children on the spectrum may be more
distinguished by their differences than by their similarities. “There is no single behavior
A child with autism might focus his attention on one object or activity for hours that is
always typical of autism and no behavior that would automatically exclude an individual
child from a diagnosis of autism” (National Research Council, 2001, p. 11).

Behavioral Characteristics

 Impaired Social Interactions

Many children with autism exhibit extreme aloofness. Parents often report that their
attempts to cuddle and show affection to the child are met with a profound lack of interest
by the child. The child seems not to know or care whether he is alone or in the company
of others. The child seldom uses social gestures such as showing and pointing things out
to others or waving and nodding his or her head at others.

1) Deficits in theory of mind

Many children with ASD have difficulty perceiving the emotional state of others,
expressing emotions, and forming attachments and relationships. Some theorists
and researchers attribute the difficulties exhibited by children with autism in social
situations to deficits in theory of mind, the intuitive ability to distinguish and interpret
one’s own and other people’s thoughts, motives, and beliefs (Baron-Cohen, Leslie &
Firth, 1985; Happe, 1993). “In brief, having a theory of mind is to be able to reflect on
the contents of one’s own and other’s minds” (Baron-Cohen, 2001, p. 3) The inability to
infer another person’s thoughts and feelings may be one reason that some children with
autism talk incessantly about obscure topics in which others have no interest (Southall &
Cambell, 2015). Researchers are developing a variety of assessments and interventions to
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teach perspective taking and other theory of mind skills to children with autism (e.g.,
Feng, Lo, Tsai, & Cartledge, 2008; LeBlanc et al., 2003)

2) Deficits in joint attention

Young children with ASD often show deficits in joint attention, a social
communication skill typically developing children begin to display in infancy.
Joint attention is evident when two people use gestures and gaze to share, follow,
or direct each other’s attention to interesting objects or events. A typically
developing child looks where someone else is looking, as when a child notices
that his mother has turned her head to look at something and does the same, or
when a child turns his head or eyes in the direction someone is pointing. Joint
attention allows the young child and another person to interact with their shared
environment in the same frame of reference, an important factor in the
development of language and social skills. Deficits in joint attention are one of the
reasons children with autism have difficulty learning by observing others
(Heward, Morgan, Konrad, 2017)

Communication and Language Deficits

Some children with autism are mute; they do not speak, but they may hum or
occasionally utter simple sounds. The speech of many who do talk consists
largely of echolalia—verbatim repetitions of what people around them have
said—and non-contextual speech phrases without any apparent communicative
purpose. Echolalia may be immediate or delayed. For example, a 7-year-old boy
with autism repeated throughout the day phrases he had heard from movies,
cartoons, television shows, announcers of sporting events, and teachers during
math instruction (Murphy, 2003)

Repetitive behaviour and routines

Some children incessantly twirl their fingers or flap their hands. Such movements
are often known as stimming, because they may play a role in changing sensory
stimulation. For instance, moving the hand up and down in front of the face may
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cause a pleasing change in the pattern of light reaching the eyes. Children may
also develop intense preoccupations and obsessions with specific objects or
textures, such as running their hand up and down a velvet curtain. They may line
up their toys in a repetitive or obsessive way, or insist on wearing the same
clothes or eating the same food every day. They may become anxious and
distressed if a familiar routine, such as going to school by bus, is disrupted.

Unusual Behavior Patterns

Some individuals, produce self-stimulation (e.g., sounds, sights, vestibular, and

other sensations) that functions as automatic reinforcement to maintain the
behavior (Lanovaz, Sladeczek, & Rapp, 2011).Typically developing people also
engage in stereotypies, but they do so in privacy and at a far lower frequency than
that of individuals with autism. A child with autism may spend hours at a time
gazing at his cupped hands, staring at lights, spinning objects, clicking a ballpoint
pen, and so on. These odd, distracting behaviors not only dominate much of the
child’s time, making it difficult at best to participate in and learn from lessons, but
they are social stigma that inhibit others from interacting with the child in a
normal way.
Insistence on Sameness
Many children with autism are inflexible with routines. A child may insist on
having all of his books and pencils arranged in exactly the same way and get very
upset if anything is moved. He may rigidly follow seemingly nonfunctional
routines or habits such as using a certain route to walk to and from his desk and
other classroom locations, drinking only from a particular cup, and unwrapping a
candy bar in a tedious and idiosyncratic manner. Even slight changes in their
routines at home or in the classroom can trigger explosive “meltdowns” in some
children. (Winter-Messiers et al., 2007).
Unusual Responsiveness to Sensory Stimuli
About 70% to 80% of individuals with autism react typically to sensory
stimulation (Harrison & Hare, 2004). This takes the form of over- and under
responsiveness to sensory stimulation. An overresponsive (hypersensitive)
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individual may not be able to stand certain sounds, being touched or the feel of
certain textures, or foods with certain smells or tastes.
An under responsive (hyposensitive) child appears oblivious to sensor stimulation
to which most people react. Some children with autism do not seem to feel pain in
a normal way. Some under responsive children will spin around and around, rock
back and forth, or rub and push things hard into their skin, perhaps to create
additional forms or higher intensities of stimulation (Gabriels et al., 2008).

Psychological Characteristics
Cognitive Functioning
Autism spectrum disorder occurs across the full range of intellectual abilities.
A national survey of 8-year-old children with ASD found that 46% had average
or above average IQ scores and 31% of children with ASD also meet the
diagnostic criteria for intellectual disability (Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, 2014). Some professionals use the terms low-functioning autism and
high-functioning autism to differentiate individuals with and without intellectual
disabilities. Many children with autism have deficits in cognitive tasks and skills
collectively called executive functioning, the ability to regulate one’s own
behavior, such as planning and goal setting, cognitive and behavioral flexibility,
inhibition, working memory, and selective attention (Montgomery, Stoesz, &
McCrimmon, 2012).

Epilepsy and Associated Problems

In some individuals, autism goes together with other physical or psychological

health problems. Perhaps the most common of these is epilepsy. It is estimated
that up to one third of people on the autism spectrum may be prone to epilepsy,
which is more common in ‘low-functioning’ autism (Viscidi et al., 2013). Some
researchers believe that there are common sources for the atypical brain activity
associated with autism and epilepsy. Fortunately there is a range of medications
and treatment which can help to prevent seizures occurring, but sadly this is not
always the case. Other common problems that co-occur in some cases of autism
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are dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Obsessive

Compulsive Disorder (OCD) (Lawson, 2018)

Attention to Detail

Often the same autistic characteristic which can make life difficult in some
situations – for instance, the tendency for attention to detail – has positive sides in
others. An autistic person trying to describe the main features of a picture or
diagram, or to summarise the general storyline of a film, may go into all the
details, and thus be unable to give a concise overview. This can be problematic,
especially in education, where the skill of summarising key points is important.
However, noticing details can also be a valuable skill. For instance, a recent report
describes how autistic employees are helping banks to detect fraud and money-
laundering, with their ability to detect subtly unusual patterns in large data sets
(Hickey, 2015).

Reactions to Stress

Autistic people may experience enormous stress and anxiety as a result of any of
the traits just described. Social situations, the disruption of familiar routines and
activities, or exposure to aversive sensory stimuli such as textures, smells and
sounds, may be confusing, overwhelming or even frightening. In such situations,
both children and adults with autism may resort to activities or behaviours which
seem particularly unusual to others, but which help the person to manage and
reduce the stress they are feeling (Lawson, 2018)

Taking Things Literally

Another noticeable language difference is taking the meaning of words, phrases

and sentences literally – for instance a child told ‘pull your socks up’, meaning
‘try harder’, may assume that it is their socks which need attention. When an
autistic boy called Michael Barton was at junior school, he devised a strategy to
help him decode the non-literal expressions that he found so strange. He would
note the expression and draw a picture of it, followed by a sentence explaining
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what it meant. As a young adult he has published his delightful drawings to help
others on the spectrum (Barton, 2012).
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References

William, L. H., Morgan, S. R. and Konrad, M . (2017). Exceptional Children, The Ohio
State University Press, pages 222-225
Roth, I. and Rowell, N . (2017). Understanding Autism, The Open University Press,
pages 39-45