Autism is a very problematic developmental disorder, so much so that psychologists place it in what they call pervasive developmental disorders. Autism has many impacts on many aspects of child development (see below).
The first works of systematic description of autism date from the 1940s, the two forerunners in the field being Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger (which will describe at the time a somewhat less serious form of autism). Bruno Bettelheim is also known for his theories about autism.
General description
What primarily characterizes the autistic disorder is the social relation in many of its aspects.
The etymology of the word autism also refers to a withdrawal into oneself. The autistic is in his own world and seems not to perceive others and their attempts to communicate, or not to be interested.
The main symptoms of autism lie in reciprocal interactions with others, although it is known today that autistic people are capable of attachment and affection!
Autism must be considered as a very profound handicap for all that is decoding and understanding the expressions and emotions in the other. It is now thought that it is really at the level of understanding and management of the social information (very complicated) necessary for human relations that disability originates.
Handicap that will manifest at the level of reciprocity, an absence of reaction to a smile, an impossibility to establish eye contact, a lack of reaction to his name. The establishment and maintenance of an exchange with others is almost impossible for him: the autistic person fails to use the smile, the gaze games, face mimicry to initiate or maintain an exchange.
The autistic person encounters enormous difficulties in sharing his interests, his emotions, his activities with others. Often, moreover, his interests can focus on noises (the passage of cars) or parts of very specific objects (the wheels of a toy truck). We talk about real social and emotional handicap. The autistic child, for example, can not practice symbolic play, pretend play, a form of learning that is absolutely fundamental for little humans!
At the language level, the autistic child often encounters developmental difficulties. Sometimes the language is simply not acquired. He uses language badly, repetitively or stereotypically. Autism is clinically very often associated with mental retardation. Gifted or brilliant autistics are rare.
The first studies of autism made the parents of children with autism very guilty. The mothers were literally accused by the psychiatrists of being responsible for the disorder of their child by a cold and deadly attitude. To escape the anguish of this 'horrible mother', the children would have taken refuge in this deep withdrawal on themselves. We know today that it was a deep (and serious!) Misunderstanding of the disorder, and the approach to autism is very different at present. A rather unfortunate mistake, with consequences that we hardly dare to imagine on the guilty mothers ...
support us in us note 5 *****
