Autism Symptoms

There are also secondary symptoms such as the tendency to perseverate for example, lining up objects repetitively), flap hands or self-stimulate (for example, staring at a fan, rubbing a particular spot on the floor, and so forth). Similarly, repeating words in a scripted way or reciting whole books that have been read to the child or whole TV shows she has seen are examples of the disorder’s secondary components. Because such symptoms are seen in a number of other kids of developmental disorder and thus are not specific to autism, they should not be used as primary criteria for making a diagnosis.
Children who have sensory processing problems, such as being overreactive to touch or sounds, but who otherwise have excellent language and relationship skills and can read and respond to emotional signaling, may be self-stimulatory or preservative because they get overloaded; they may be trying to regulate themselves. These secondary phenomena can also be seen in children with sever motor planning problems. Sometimes children with language deficits or very circumscribed cognitive or learning difficulties may also show some of these symptoms.Some children, for example, lack the ability to engage in what we call “shared social problem-solving” with their toys and to play with them in a flexible way with parents or peers. They are unable to show their toy to a caregiver, flash a big smile, and gesture for a reaction. Rather, they tend to just line up their toys. Thus, the symptoms reflect and result from a lack of mastering the core abilities. Having a narrow range of interest is another such symptoms. Because children expand their range of interest through communication with others, when they do not use gestures in continuing interaction to indicate their wishes and needs, their range of interests remains narrow