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There are several forms of autism that tend to affect a great deal of people. The problem that a lot of people run into when answering the question what is autism is that they tend to put everyone into the same grouping of autism. The symptoms of autism can vary and will range from the person that appears to be borderline retarded to the person that has their autism under control and to the rest of the world appears to be a normal member of society. This is why you can not group all people with autism into one single group

The two groups that many people with autism fit into are those that have an IQ that is below 80 and those that have an IQ above 80. This is an unofficial way to categorize people with autism and is not endorsed or used by those in the medical community. Most times when the terms high and low level function are used is is to refer to the level of functionality that a person has in their life. There are those within the community of autism that will determine this to be a touchy subject and will as a result not tend to use these terms at all.

There are still some out in the community when asking what is autism that will not diagnosis a person who can speak and write as being autistic. This often times leads to a person who is suffering from autism to go undetected and as a result will result in them not getting the help that they need for their condition. These people are ignored because they do not have the obvious signs of autism and therefore it is never detected.

Because of this trend it is often times common for the label retarded to be attached to a person that is autistic. This is a common frustration for people who do not get the help that they need for this issue. But this also leads many in the community to ask the question what is autism, if a normal appearing person is not diagnosed as being autistic.

So if a person that appears on all levels to be normal how do we answer the question what is autism? Is it only a label that gets slapped on a person that shows obvious signs of such or is it that in answering the question what is autism we need to reevaluate the procedures that are used to detect this disorder.

The question as to what is autism will probably never be fully answered as many professionals will continue to the exact answer to this question and people who need to be treated for this condition will still be ignored while the medical community debates what exactly is autism and how does it get detected?

There is a lot of information out on the internet that will help in answering the question what is autism, you will be able to take this information and apply it to your child to see if maybe he has signs of autism, after all you will be the key in answering this question when it comes to your child.

In the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders the biggest difference when comparing Autistic Disorder (Kanner’s) and Asperger’s Syndrome would be that a Autistic Disorder will include; observed delays or even abnormal levels in at least one and maybe more of the following areas, normally the onset of symptoms of autism will be before the age 3 years old: The first would be in the area of social interaction, second would be problems with language as used in social settings, or the third area would be in symbolic or imaginative play that would not be considered to be a normal level for the average child. While in Asperger’s Syndrome there would only be a slight, to no observed delay noticed.

While the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not really include levels of intellectual function for the diagnosing of Asperger’s Syndrome, it is a proven statistical fact that those person’s who do have Asperger’s Syndrome will as a general rule will tend to out perform those autistic with Kanner’s Autism or Low Functioning Autism this has led to a popular idea that Asperger’s Syndrome can be thought of as being synonymous with high functioning autism, or that it could be considered as a totally separate disorder from autism. A popular belief is that those autistic individuals who have a higher level of intellectual function do in fact actually have Asperger’s Syndrome.

Autism as a spectrum disorder Autism disorders also come under the heading of autistic spectrum disorders. A closely related disorder would be, Sensory Integration Dysfunction, which would involve just how well a person is able to use the information that they receive from their senses. Sensory Integration Dysfunction, Autism, as well as Asperger’s Syndrome, have been found to be closely related and in many cases have been found to overlap each other.

While still subject to much debate, there are some people who believe that there might be two separate scenarios for the time line for the onset of regular autism, these would be early infantile autism and regressive autism. Early infantile autism would be present at the time of childbirth, and regressive autism would begin between the ages of 18 months and 36 months.