Autism And Aetiology

The purpose of this assignment is to outline the history, aetiology and prevalence of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Moreover, it will critically examine current legislation, cognitive and affective theories and will ultimately demonstrate the utility of such theory being put into practice in the writer’s given field of work. For the purpose of this assignment the words Autism and ASD will be used interchangeably and any names used will be pseudonyms.

The field of Autism has developed significantly over the past few years and there has been much research since its discovery over 60 years ago (Wolff 2004). Nevertheless, it is actually still in its infancy and there is a long way to go towards fully understanding the condition known as
However, certain hypothesis or theories which have been purported to be causative, have proved to be highly controversial, with parents often wondering if they were in someway to blame (Happe 1994). The thought process behind ‘Refrigerator Mothers’ theory was that their children had autism because of the mother’s frigidity. They were supposedly "cold" towards their child and didn't interact, play with them or show affection (Szatmari 2003). This was first noted by Leo Kanner in his paper “Autistic disturbances of affective content” (cited in O’Brien and Daggett 2006). Kanner noted a “genuine lack of maternal warmth”. Szatmari (2003) suggests that Kanner overlooked the fact that the children in his study had siblings that were unaffected by the same parents affection or lack of
Paul is three and a half and has an obsession with keys which has seen him start his father’s car and allowed him to escape from the house while everyone slept. Colin is seven and insists on the Velcro on his shoes being fastened nine times before he will leave the house, it can’t be eight or ten, if they are accidentally fastened ten times he will take them off and the process begins again. Michael at three has an obsession with wheels, he has no interest with the cars he is given but could spend all day just spinning the wheels. Aidan is four and when drawing a face gives it only a mouth, no eyes and no nose. Having an increased understanding of the cognitive theories enables me to explain to parents why their children might be behaving in this manner and undoubtedly gives them better insight into their child’s behaviour.

Over the past two years, my own awareness of ASD has grown greatly and as a result I became aware of the lack of peer support in my practice area. As a direct result of this I set up a parent support group “Little STARS” which has now been running for over a