Autism Spectrum Disorder Analysis

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a developmental disorder that is marked by problems in an individual’s social interactions with others due to deficits in conversational skills, attentional skills, as well as deficits in processing complex stimuli (DSM-V, 2013). Other areas of concern are repetitive and restrictive behaviors often called stereotypical behaviors which are instances of echolalia (echoing speech heard instead of communicating individual thoughts), lining up toys in order of a physical attributes, staring into space at dust particles or other minute objects, and repetitively spinning or flipping objects (DSM-V, 2013). Further issues are hypersensitivity to stimuli which can lead to anxiety displayed through bouts of crying and/or screaming. …show more content…
Cases of hyposensitivity exists as well which may manifest as self-injurious behaviors such as failing to remove a hand from a hot stove (Hazen et. al, 2014) or even slapping or hitting themselves in the head repeatedly. Because of the jarring nature of some of these attributes and the harmful and potentially robbing effect of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on an individual’s social quality of life as well as physical health in extreme cases, it is of importance that we strive to treat ASD as well as explore the potential causes of the disease in hopes of better understanding it and being able to successfully recover anyone who is diagnosed with the disorder. It is my belief that in order to solve the puzzle of ASD we need to explore the dysfunctional brain that manifests the behaviors of ASD. I will review studies that have looked at the way brains with autism function compared to typical developing brains and attempt to explain the findings and thoughts on why autism creates the negative behaviors that those with the disorder …show more content…
(2013) that looked at the benefits of using bio-feedback in the form of monitoring electrical skin conductance compared to using feedback from EEG waves to provide feedback. The concept is based on the idea of allowing a person with autism (or any person for that matter) to mentally make an effort to exercise metacognition and thus enhance and strengthen higher cognitive functioning that those with autism lack. An example would be using a video game and teaching a person with ASD how to control it with their mind using brain waves while provided feedback from EEG waves via a researcher or electrical skin conductance monitors to help them improve their control of a game component. Coben and Ricca (2015) commented that both methods were shown by Kouijze et. al (2013) to work equally well in improving the situation of the participants ASD symptoms but more research was needed. As cited in Coben and Ricca (2015) the shorter connections in the neural net for those with autism which are linked up in the frontal cortex seem to be intact and those connecting the frontal cortex (known to be the executive part of the brain) to the parietal and posterior areas of the brain where auditory, visual, as well as language skills are located seem to be diminished. Another finding was that children with autism have poor lateralization of the brain meaning that the left and right side of the brain are not in sync as they

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