Question

I would like to have a response on this form or post for my psychology class.

My paper will examine Autism throughout the lifespan. Specifically I am trying to determine if there is a time throughout one's lifetime where techniques to 'treat' an Autism disorder are most effective. While there are many symptoms of Autism including social, cognitive and even psychological 'deficiencies' compared to an individual without autism, I am only looking at treating the individuals cognitions, or at least increasing their cognitive function. I understand that Autism is often diagnosed around or under 2 years of age and that cognitive abilities increase with age. Therefore, I understand I need to make sure cognitive functioning is just not increasing because it does with age, but because of some sort of intervention. One problem with the research will probably be the wide variation in the Autism Spectrum Disorders. Individuals diagnosed with ASD will often have different symptoms (some not even being cognitive deficiencies), and vary in their severity of and/or frequency of symptoms. Furthermore, ADHD and ASD have symptoms that are similar so I wonder about misdiagnosis or co-morbidity in some of the studies I will find. There is also a sex difference in diagnosis of ASD, males are more often diagnosed with ASD than females. As of now I have only gone as far into my research as class has required (two article summaries), but I have over half of my resources chosen.

Answer 1

Autism spectrum disorder involves widespread difficulties in social interaction, communication, and behavioral flexibility. Autism Spectrum Conditions are atypical developmental conditions characterised by impairments in social interaction and communication, alongside unusually restricted/repetitive behaviours and interests, need for sameness, and atypical sensory processing.

There are other gender differences in autistic characteristics which may contribute to late diagnosis or misdiagnosis of females.For example, it is suggested that girls with ASC may mimic other socially successful individuals to give the impression that they too are socially successful, but when placed in unknown environments they are not prepared for, they struggle to socialise. Most importantly, studies of camouflaging in ASC cannot progress until a conceptual model of camouflaging has been produced, so that subsequent research has strong theoretical grounding. Such a model is best developed from a qualitative analysis of the camouflaging experiences of individuals with ASC.