What is Autism?

Definition: According to the Ministry of Education, autism is a severe learning disorder that impacts an individual's rate of educational development (7). It may impact one's ability to relate to the environment, their mobility, perception, speech and language (7). Another instance could be that the student lacks a representational symbolic behaviour that proceeds language (7).

Different Types of Autism: There are three main different types of autism although the severity of each type within each child is different. The three types are Autistic Disorder, Aspergers Disorder/Syndrome or Pervasive Development Disorder (PDD) (2).

Autistic Disorder
    When a child has autistic disorder their diagnose relates to delays or atypical functioning prior to the age of three (2). The student will generally show abnormal/ impaired development in social interaction and communication (3, 10). Furthermore, the child will usually have a restricted repertoire of activities and interests (3, 10).

Aspergers Disorder/Syndrome
    When a child has aspergers they have similar features that are present in the autistic disorder. Usually the students will have impairments in social interaction, and communication (2). Furthermore, they generally have restricted patterns of behaviours, interests and activities (6, 6). The main difference between Aspergers and Autistic Disorder is that children with Aspergers do not show significant delays in early language or cognitive development (3)

Pervasive Development Disorder
   When a child has PDD they generally have the same diagnoses as autistic disorder except there are usually less symptoms (2). This is the moderate form of autism.