Health Topics A-Z

What Are the Symptoms?

Symptoms of autism include:

• Extreme difficulty in learning language
• Inappropriate response to people. A child with autism may avoid eye contact, resist being picked up or cuddled, and seem to tune out the world.
• Inability or reduced ability to play cooperatively with other children or to make friends.
• Inability to understand other people's feelings.
• Need for a rigid, highly structured routine — and being very distressed by changes in routines.
• Extreme hyperactivity or unusual passivity.
• Repetitive body movements including pacing, hand flicking, twisting, spinning, rocking, or hitting oneself.
• Insensitivity to pain or lack of response to cold or heat.
• Impulsive behavior and no real fear of dangers.
• An unusual attachment to inanimate objects such as toys, strings, or spinning objects.
• Frequent crying and tantrums for no apparent reason.
• Peculiar speech patterns. An autistic child may use words without understanding their meanings.
• Abnormal responses to sensations such as light, sound, and touch. At times an autistic child may appear deaf. At other times the child may be extremely distressed by everyday noises.
• Some of these symptoms occur in children with other disabilities. Symptoms can change as the child grows older.

Call Your Doctor If:

• Your infant or child resists cuddling and doesn't respond to his or her environment or to other people.
• By about the age of 1 year, your child is not pointing to objects, bringing items to you, or engaging in simple interactions such as "peek-a-boo."
• By the age of 18 months your child is not using any words or attempting to communicate.
• Your child bangs his or her head or demonstrates self-injurious behavior or aggression on a regular basis.
• Your child demonstrates unusually repetitive behavior, such as repeatedly opening and closing doors or turning a toy car upside down and repeatedly spinning its wheels.