ClaremontCrizzle Education

Autism

Indicators:

*Difficulty in mixing with other children; prefers to be alone; aloof manner; difficulty in expressing needs; uses gestures or pointing instead of words.
*Abnormal responses to one or a combination of senses; such as sight, hearing, touch, balance, smell, taste, reaction to pain.
*Sustained odd play.
*Uneven gross/ fine motor skills.
*Not responsive to verbal cues acts as deaf.
*Little or no eye contact.
*Insistence on sameness; resist changes in routine.
*Noticeable physical over activity or extreme under activity.
*Tantrums; displays extreme distress for no apparent reason.
*Speech and language absence or delays.
*Inappropriate laughing and giggling.
*Echolalia (repeating words or phrases in place of normal language).
*Abnormal ways of relating to people, objects and events.
*Inappropriate attachment to objects
*Spins objects.

An aspect of language that tends to be disturbed in autistic people has to do with knowing how to use language appropriately and in context. That includes knowing how to hold a conversation, thinking about what the other person in a conversation understands and believes, and tuning in to the non-verbal signals of the other person, such as facial expression, tone of voice and body language. It is important to remember that communication is as much nonverbal as it is verbal, and autistic people have great difficulty understanding nonverbal language.

More:

The National Autistic Society