AUTISM

By:
Pauline Narciso
Philip Lai
Henry Kang
 Overview
Pauline
– General Survey of Autism
– Neural/Chemical Correlates
Philip
– Comparison of Consciousness
Henry
– Treatments
 General Notes
Autism as a Syndrome: multiple disease
entities

Autism is a developmental syndrome:

Common deficit: theory of mind

 Bit of History
1943- Kanner

“extreme aloneness from the beginning of

life and anxiously obsessive desire for the
preservation of sameness.”

Initial cause: Bad parents

 Diagnostic Criteria
Severe abnormality of reciprocal social
relatedness
Severe abnormality of communication
development
Restricted, repetitive behavior, patterns of
behavior, interests, imagination
Early onset (before 3-5 years)
 Other observed behaviors

Lack of awareness of feelings of others

Bizarre speech patterns
Lack of spontaneous and make-believe play
Preoccupation with parts of objects
Repetitive motor movements
Marked distress over changes
 Begins when…
80% of cases began as “Infantile Autism”
 Screening Model for Infantile
Autism
Is child’s eye-to-eye contact normal?
Is he/she comforted by proximity/body
contact?
Does he/she often smile or laugh
unexpectedly?
Does he/she prefer to be left alone?
 Systematic Feature
Examination
Hand stereotypies (strange looking or
posturing)
Stiff gaze, avoidance of
Little reaction to strong, unexpected noise
Passive, obvious lack of interest
Disease Entities within Autism
IABD
Zapella Dysmaturational subgroup
Purine Autism
Asperger’s and Autistic Savants

All share common Autistic behaviors

 Infantile Autistic Bipolar
Disorder
Regression after initial normal development
Meets classical criteria for Autism
Autistic symptoms have a cyclical pattern
Positive family history of BD or Depression

Different from Autistic who later has onset

of BD
 Zapella Dysmaturational
subgroup
 Loss of language after initial normal dev
 Meets classical criteria
 Complex tics present
 Normal neurological exam, normal lab exams
 Rapid improvement following therapy
 Reach quasi-normal abilities by age 5-6
 After age 6, usually fall into other psycho-
pathological category, ADHD
 Purine Autism
Classical criteria met
Too high/too low levels of uric acid
Constipation
Gout in family members
Seizures and self-injury in majority
“Purine”:abnormal levels of end product
(uric acid) of all purine pathways
 Quote on Purine Autistic
“the boy was an irritable baby who resisted
any change in routine and never looked at
people around him. By 2 years of age, the
few words he had were rapidly
disappearing. He lined up his toys in long
straight lines instead of playing with them.
He developed pica, teeth-grinding,
compulsive biting to the point of bleeding.”
 On the functioning end..
Asperger’s: meet criteria, but have normal
IQ functioning
Autistic Savants: special skills in memory,
music, math, calendar calc, drawing, and
hyperalexia reading.
 Theories on contributing
factors
 Unfavorable pre, peri,  Locus
post-natal factors Coerulus:Mediates
 Cellular and structural input from senses-
changes in Limbic underdeveloped
System (amygdala,
 Low mercury levels
cerebellum, and
hippocampus)
 L-hemi neural substrates
fail to develop (loss
lang., consciousness,
motor planning
 Who’s affected?

 1% of general public under the Autism

Spectrum
 Most often tend to be males
 Altered States Compared to Normal
 Resistance to change, Insist on sameness
 Strong attachments to objects; Spins objects
 Difficulty in mixing with others
 Throw Temper Tantrums
 Tend not to want to cuddle or be cuddled
 Over-sensitivity or under-sensitivity to pain
 No fears of danger
 Sensory Processing
 Painfully sensitive to certain sounds, textures, tastes,
and smells.

 Either too sensitive or less sensitive than normal. Some

autistic have difficulty interpreting sensory information.

 Like normal these experiences are not hallucinations but

based on real experiences.

 Some avoid being touched, a gentle touch for most, will

hurt or shock autistics.

 Some are insensitive to pain, and fail to notice injuries.

 Emotions
 Take major emergencies in stride but become upset over
minor disruption.
 Unemotional, but can be very emotional when things are
important to them.
 More candid and expressive with their emotions than
normal people.
 Small amount will have difficulty regulating their
emotions. Individual will have verbal outburst, usually in
strange or overwhelming environment.
 Communications
Problem with semantic-pragmatic component, take
a statement or question in a literal way.

Ex.) "I'd like coffee with my cereal“

Repeating things that have been heard (echolalia)

Inability to understand body language, tone of
voice
Some autistics are mute
 Communication Cont.
Difficult in sustaining a conversation. No
normal "give and take" in a conversation
Autistics tend to go on with their favorite
subjects and do not give the other person a
chance to talk.
People with autism might stand too close to the
other person.
Body language, facial expressions, and
gestures do not match what they are saying.
 Attention
Trouble handling multiple stimuli of attention.

Very narrow focused attention, can not keep up

with more than one thing at a time.

Shifting attention is a slow process, usually

involves pauses or moments of delay.
 Productivity
 Great deal of variety among autistics.

 Some autistic may never learn to talk and be dependent

throughout their lives.

 Others may do well in special supportive settings,

working in a sheltered environment.

 There are autistics that are fully independent and

function fairly well.
 Theory of Mind
 TOM is absent in autistics, can not attribute mental states.
 Autistic can not reflect on their own mental states.
 Cause abnormalities in social interactions,
communications, and imagination.
 Understanding mental states of others can allows
individuals to make sense of past behavior, allows
influence on present behavior and permits prediction of
future behavior.
 Normal 3 year olds no TOM,
but 4 year olds tend to have a TOM.
 Mirror Neurons
 Tested controls and autistics on 4 different tasks.
 Researchers compared mu rhythms. At baseline, mu
rhythms will fire in synchrony, large amplitude mu
oscillations.
 Normal when seeing an action perform will cause mu
rhythms to fire asynchronously, therefore resulting in
mu suppression.
 Mirror Neurons Cont.
 So mu wave suppression will reflect activity of the
mirror neuron system.
 In autistics, there was mu suppression in their own
hand movements, but no mu suppression to the
observed hand movements.
 Autism Treatment
 Behavioral modification and
communication approaches

 Dietary and biomedical approaches

 Complementary approaches
Behavioral & Communication
 Applied Behavior Analysis
– Rewarded behavior
 TEACCH
– Understand the world
 PECS
– Picture exchange
 Social Stories
– Theory of Mind
 Sensory Integration
 Biomedical Treatments
Medications
– Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors
– Anti-Psychotic Medications
Risperidone

Vitamins and Minerals

Dietary Interventions
 Risperidone
 Two double-blind, placebo-controlled responses of
risperidone
– Adults and Children
 Serotonin-Dopamine antagonist
 Effective as a short-term treatment
– Tantrums, Aggression, Self-Injurious Behavior
– Interfering repetitive behavior, self-injurious behavior,
sensory motor behaviors, affectual reactions, overall
behavioral symptoms
 Risperidone Cont.
 Figure 1: Mean Scores for Irritability
 Risperidone Cont.
 Figure 2: Change in Severity of Overall
Symptoms
 Vitamins & Minerals
 Vitamin B
– Most common vitamin supplement
 Vitamins A and D
– Eye contact and behavior
 Vitamin C
– Improve symptom severity
 Dietary Interventions
Gluten
– Disruption in biochemical and neuroregulatory
processes

Yeast
– Behavioral and medical problems
 Complementary Approaches
 Improving Communication Skills
– Music Therapy
 Speech Development

– Art Therapy
 Non-verbal, Symbolic Expression

– Animal Therapy
 Physical and Emotional Benefits
 Conclusion
 Autism is a spectrum

 Autistics lack an essential element of

consciousness-Theory of Mind
 References
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 References Cont.
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Risperidone in Adults With Autistic Disorder and Other Pervasive
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<http://www.bci.ucsd.edu/~pineda/CNL_WEBPAGE/index.html>.
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