High functioning autism signs toddlers
Signs and Symptoms of High Functioning Autism
As autism awareness increases across the country, more parents are gaining an understanding that their kids are not just socially awkward or late bloomers but that they are living with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
There are different levels of disability on the Spectrum. Asperger Syndrome (AS) (also referred to as Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder) and High Functioning Autism (HFA) are the mildest. HFA, though no longer an accepted medical term, refers to a wide range of neurodevelopmental disorders and is quite similar to AS. However, the two can be differentiated by specific characteristics more commonly associated with one than the other. If you are concerned your child may be living with HFA, understanding the distinct signs and symptoms of HFA may help you decide if you need to look for treatment for autism in Little Rock.
What Is Autism Spectrum Disorder?
Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disability that causes social, behavioral and communication challenges. Autism affects approximately one in every fifty-nine children in the United States. Symptoms vary widely from patient to patient.
Importance of Autism Awareness and Support
If you are looking for support services for children with Autism in Little Rock, knowing where in the Spectrum your child falls is important to finding appropriate care. Children with HFA tend to have very few intellectual challenges, and their IQ is usually above 70. Your child may score normally or above average on an IQ test and perform well in school, but she could still be autistic. Because children with HFA can have an above-average IQ and no intellectual challenges, High Functioning Autism awareness tends to be low. With little to no support for these children, they often become emotionally distressed.
Causes of Autism
The causes of autism have not been discovered, but doctors suggest the condition originates from structural underdevelopment of specific regions of the brain.
There is no cure for ASD, but with therapeutic treatment for autism, your child can live a normal and fulfilling life. Knowing what to look for goes a long way in helping a child with autism receive the support they need.
Signs and Symptoms of High Functioning Autism
1. Repetitiveness
HFA is partly characterized by anobsession with a particular subject or activity. If you have noticed your child cannot get enough of a particular subject, it could be more than just a normal childhood love for dinosaurs or dogs.
The obsession can be positive in that it improves your child’s understanding of a particular academic subject or art. The increased interest in a specific field and subsequent excellence in the area has led to many scientific and mathematical inventions. Additionally, it can be a means of finding similarly minded children to encourage social engagement and activities.
However, these obsessions can cause a negative impact as well. If the obsession is interfering with social interactions or quality of life, support services can help them use their ability to hyperfocus in more effective ways.
2. Emotional sensitivity
Individuals living with High Functioning Autism are also prone to high levels of emotional sensitivity. Slight provocations — such as your use of language, noise, or even competition from siblings — can ruin the whole day.
Insufficient autism awareness coupled with the fact that High Functioning Autism is challenging to detect can make many children suffer extreme emotional sensitivity. This can also lead to intense sorrow and isolation after a trauma.
If your child is easily angered by small things and unable to let it go, it may be time to see a doctor.
3. Social problems
Children who live with HFA may also have challenges interacting with their peers. In most cases, the child will always be alone and tend to have difficulties with group discussions or teamwork. Without early intervention to help promote healthy interactions, the child may end up having significant challenges in his future professional life.
If your child has a problem with working or interacting with other kids, various forms of therapy can help them learn coping skills in a way they can understand without feeling overwhelmed.
Remember, attempting to socialize your child will not ‘solve’ her autism. A specialist can help the child learn social skills in a very particular way.
4. Language peculiarities
Unlike their counterparts with low functioning autism who often struggle with language development, children living with HFA tend to have a better understanding of language. Your child’s peers will likely find it strange that he or she uses formal language rather than slang, causing children with autism to stand out.
Individuals with HFA are commonly referred to as having “fluent autism” and will often have a rich collection of vocabulary and no issue speaking or writing grammatically correct sentences. When this particular use of language is combined with a narrow range of interest, a choice of wording and phrasing that is regularly odd could signal HFA.
5. Sensory difficulties
Almost all children who have autism spectrum disorders find processing sensations a challenge.
Your child’s senses may either be under or overly sensitive, or both, and this can cause anxiety and stress as they try to process the world around them using their senses.
Physical sensation challenges may cause your child to be easily disrupted, such as by a level of noise or a smell that does not seem to affect their peers. Something as simple as a hug or flashing lights may overstimulate your child, and the result may be withdrawal or a meltdown. In such cases, seeking treatment for autism can help your child receive the intervention they need to manage sensory information better.
6. Little or no attention to caregivers
Children with High Functioning Autism have a problem maintaining eye contact with the parent or caregiver. They may not respond to caregivers in the way other children do. They may not laugh or play with the same mannerisms.
For example, when most small children find something funny, they look to their caregiver to see if the caregiver is sharing their amusement, signaling social awareness.
When a child fails to look to the caregiver for a shared interest, it might be a sign the child lacks this particular social skill.
Treatment For Autism in Little Rock
If you or your child’s doctor are concerned about the presence of any of these symptoms or your child has been diagnosed with autism, Integrity, Inc. can help you find support services for children experiencing autism in Little Rock. Visit Integrity Inc. online or call us at (501) 406-0442 to learn more. We can provide information about what autism is and how your child can lead a normal life.
10 Symptoms of High-Functioning Autism
- Emotional Sensitivity
- Fixation on Particular Subjects or Ideas
- Linguistic Oddities
- Social Difficulties
- Problems Processing Physical Sensations
- Devotion to Routines
- Development of Repetitive or Restrictive Habits
- Dislike of Change
- Focus on Self
- Unusual Movement Patterns
In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association published the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5).
This edition of the DSM had some important changes to the way autism is diagnosed. Previously, diagnoses like Asperger’s Syndrome and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder were used to describe individuals at the extreme ends of the autism spectrum. High-functioning autism and Asperger’s are not an official medical diagnosis, but rather unofficial terms used to describe individuals who have mild symptoms of autism. Parents and providers in the field may still refer to these terms to indicate a level of support or degree of disability.
With the DSM-5, those diagnoses all fall under “Autism Spectrum Disorders.” Individuals with an autism spectrum disorder now include a level of severity in their diagnosis. What would have been known as high functioning autism or Asperger’s is now considered ASD Level 1.
Regardless of the terms used, early identification of autism spectrum disorders is crucial. Diagnosis rates for autism continue to rise, especially as parents and professionals become more familiar with the symptoms of Level 1 ASD or high functioning autism.
Tools like the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) help psychologists and other therapists make an official diagnosis.
Many patients are getting the assistance they need to live full, productive lives because their unusual behaviors are no longer seen as simple social awkwardness or eccentricity. As more caring medical and mental health professionals learn to recognize the most common signs of high functioning autism, the number of interventions available to people with autism will rise.
See Also: What are the 10 Most Common Signs of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?
Emotional SensitivityAlthough often overlooked, sensitivity to emotions is one of the most common symptoms of high functioning autism. These individuals can function in day-to-day life but struggle to control their emotions the same way that neurotypical, or non-autistic people, are able to do. For example, a frustrating morning experience like running out of milk or being cut off while driving can cause irritability and difficulty concentrating for the rest of the day.
People with autism spectrum disorder may also have unusually intense emotional reactions compared to the rest of the population.
Continually discussing the same topics in conversation, obsessively playing the same song repeatedly, or reading every article written about a certain topic are signs of high-functioning autism in adults and adolescents. These interests can be negative if they take over the individual’s life or interfere with their relationships with others.
Of course, these obsessive tendencies can also be helpful; Dan Aykroyd, writer and star in the hit film Ghostbusters, was inspired by his focus on ghosts and the paranormal. Many other high-functioning autistic individuals have used their focus on mathematics, biology, or writing to inspire successful careers.
Linguistic OdditiesChildren on the low-functioning end of the autism spectrum usually struggle with:
- learning to speak
- building vocabulary
- holding conversations with others
Individuals with signs of high-functioning autism may start talking much earlier than normal and often display an impressive vocabulary.
They may find conversations with others boring or difficult to follow and may avoid speaking with their peers. An autistic person may simply seem eccentric during conversations as their diverse vocabularies, frequent interruptions or focus on particular topics seem like oddities rather than neurological symptoms.
Parents and teachers may notice that young autistics have problems interacting with their peers. These high-functioning autism symptoms in children and teenagers can include:
- a limited social circle
- problems sharing toys or materials
- difficulty completing group work
Sometimes youth are considered shy, quirky or socially awkward when they are truly dealing with autism spectrum disorder. These kids need counseling services to help them learn social rules, as the problems with interacting with others usually stem from a lack of understanding appropriate behavior with peers.
They have a difficult time recognizing social cues and body language. Early intervention from mental health professionals can help autistic youth learn the best ways to interact with their classmates and potential friends.
Many individuals with autism have sensory difficulties. They may have an intolerance to specific:
- noises
- tastes
- smells
- feelings
Noisy public places can lead to emotional distress, as can uncomfortable clothing or unwanted touches. These issues can be disruptive and stressful, but according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, autism symptoms can improve over time as children with mild autism learn to regulate their own behavior through work with professionals.
Many individuals on the autism spectrum can benefit from occupational therapy to manage sensory issues. An occupational therapist can create goals and strategies for the individual to work on.
They might meet with the individual one day a week or a couple days, depending on the person’s needs.
People with high-functioning autism are typically devoted to routines. They may stick with routines developed for them by others, such as reading for exactly 15 minutes before going to bed or brushing their teeth exactly five minutes after eating a meal. Any sort of deviation from the routine could cause frustration. Examples include:
- A parent needing to help a sick sibling at bedtime instead of reading a bedtime story
- The school bus running late and missing first period
- A snowstorm causing school to be cancelled
The person with high-functioning autism may devote an exorbitant amount of time to performing their routines to the detriment of:
- self-care
- sleep
- exercise
- homework
- learning
Repetitive habits may also be symptoms of high-functioning autism in adults.
Those habits could interfere with the person’s ability to do what they need to do or what others want them to do. One type of repetitive habit might be related to movement. The individual might have to tie and untie their shoes multiple times before they are satisfied and are able to start walking or leave the house.
Some high functioning autistic people also develop restrictive habits that interfere with socially accepted living. For example, an individual might refuse to wear any other kind of shirt than a tee shirt. This could impact their health and well-being if they live in a place with cold weather.
Dislike of ChangeOne of the hallmark high functioning autism symptoms is a strong dislike of change. An individual might eat the same meal every day for breakfast, and they may eat it in the same quantity, on the same dish, and in the same place. Any disruption or change in the routine could cause an outburst in the individual. For example, if the usual brand of peanut butter has run out, and a different brand has been purchased instead, the person with high-functioning autism may have an outburst of anger or frustration.
If someone has used their preferred dish, they may have a similar outpouring of volatility.
People with high-functioning autism may have trouble developing deep social relationships with others. Part of this issue also includes an inordinate focus on self. A person with high-functioning autism may spend an excessive amount of time talking about themselves, not allowing another person to share a complete thought or response. This makes carrying on a conversation difficult. In the family or household setting, a person with high-functioning autism may only think of themselves when doing activities. For example, they might pour themselves a drink without asking if anyone else would also like a drink. They might take more than what others perceive as a fair share of a snack or treat, genuinely not thinking that others might also want some of the items.
Unusual Movement PatternsA person with high-functioning autism may have unusual movement patterns.
Toe walking is a common movement disorder. The person may walk on their toes or the ball and the toes of the feet without putting much bodyweight on the other parts of the foot. This can result in foot pain in the ball, hammertoe, or bunion from the excessive pressure. The shoes and socks may wear out in the forefoot area much faster than in the heel area. People who walk on their toes may experience more foot injuries, such as blisters, calluses, and corns on their footpads and toes. Toe walking is more common in young children and people with musculoskeletal, explains the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.
Related Resource: Top 20 Best Applied Behavior Analysis Programs
Not all individuals with autism exhibit physical tics or an inability to maintain social ties. High functioning autistic individuals usually present symptoms not originally associated with autism. Helping professionals must continue to push for recognition of the range of behaviors associated with the autism spectrum.
Familiarity with these ten symptoms of high-functioning autism helps providers, parents, teachers and others coordinate the early treatment of a person with this condition. Resources like Autism Speaks can also provide parents and professionals with support and helpful ideas.
Related:
- 20 Autism Charities Worthy of Your Donations
- 30 Great Jobs for People on the Autism Spectrum
- How Can Speech Improve in Nonverbal Children with Autism?
- What are Distress Tolerance Skills?
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Back to topSigns of high functioning autism
If a child with autism appears in the family, then this requires additional care from relatives and friends. The development of such children depends mainly on the perseverance and diligence of their environment.
One of the forms of the disease is high functioning autism.
The term "autism" refers to disorders in the development of the brain, resulting in a lack of social interaction and communication difficulties.
High-functioning autism is a form of the disease that is the subject of active medical discussion. These are children with a high IQ.
Physiological signs commonly seen in children with high functioning autism include:
- Dull or excessive sensory perception;
- Frequent convulsions;
- Weak immunity;
- Manifestation of irritable bowel syndrome;
- Violation of the functioning of the pancreas.
Behavioral deviations.
Speech problems.
- Before the age of one, children hardly walk.
- Vocabulary no more than 15 words by the age of two.
- At the age of 3, the ability to combine words is inhibited.
- Children are unable to generalize and use personal pronouns. They talk about themselves in the third person.
- Contact with others is weak or absent altogether.
- Children do not look into the eyes, do not ask for hands, do not smile in response to a smile.
- They do not single out parents, do not respond to appeals.
Difficulties in socialization.
Children with high-functioning autism try to isolate themselves from the environment of people, move away, hide. Any displeasure causes them hysteria, anger, aggression, they can bite or hit. Aggression is often directed at oneself. They show almost no interest in toys, are not capable of imaginative thinking and do not understand what to do with them. But there may be a strong attachment to one toy or to any object. These children have a narrow field of interest. The ability to achieve results in one direction. Observation. The need to complete what has been started. Stereotypical behavior.
Tendency to a certain order of actions.
Children with high-functioning autism can attend regular schools, but parents will have to put in a lot of effort to do so.
How to help a child with high functioning autism?
Autism is an incurable disease. It accompanies a person throughout life. The child grows up, and the quality of his adult life depends on the persistence of his environment.
Recommendations on how to organize the life of an autistic person with a high-functioning form of the disease . Their implementation makes it easier for the child to interact with the outside world:
- Make a schedule, adhere to a clear daily routine, warn of any changes in advance so that the child gets used to the idea of changing the usual routine.
- Identify external stimuli. A child with high-functioning autism may become aggressive at the slightest detail. It could be a certain color, sound, or action.
Protect your child from irritants. - Learn to calm tantrums, which happen quite often. Don't let your child get too stressed out and tired. Take care of safety during a tantrum.
- Remove all essential items from the area. Do not shout or scare the child, do not criticize his actions. This behavior will increase stress, and the child will not be able to calm down for longer.
Parents! Do not refuse the help of defectologists, psychologists, speech therapists and correctional programs. This will help a child with high-functioning autism to adapt to a difficult world for him.
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Nine symptoms of high-functioning autism that I did not notice in my child
05/29/19
Mother of a child with ASD about “non-obvious” and little-known signs that may indicate autism
Author: 9
My son was six years old when we started the process of diagnosing him.
He was almost seven when the diagnosis was completed. Now he is seven years old and in the second grade. I don't like the label, but in his case, it's common to talk about "high-functioning" autism. (Also see: What does 'high-functioning' or 'low-functioning' autism mean?)
He did not have all the symptoms of 'classic autism', so he was diagnosed late. Many children, like my son, are diagnosed later because the symptoms of high-functioning autism are much more subtle. He never got early help, and now he's too big for her. He is currently on the waiting list for an autism care program for school children. However, after he was diagnosed, I realized that in fact I did not notice a lot of signs of high-functioning autism.
Looking back, I see that these signs were there, and I would like to tell you about them now.
Remember that just because your child has some (or all) of the following characteristics, it does not mean that he has autism. This is just an article about personal experience.
But if this article is being read by parents who have doubts about their own child, then I want to give you advice - trust your intuition. If something is bothering you, discuss it with the experts. If I had listened to my inner voice, which told me that something was wrong, we would have received a diagnosis much earlier.
And this is how high-functioning autism was expressed in our case.
1. He got very upset when he was around other people.
Even when he was a baby. I remember that on my first Mother's Day we went to dinner at a restaurant. As soon as we entered the restaurant, my son began to cry loudly, and nothing could console him - we had to leave. I chalked it up to him being just tired, but that wasn't the only thing.
He reacted the same way to every family gathering, birthday party, any situation where more than 2-3 people were present. Large groups of people still make him very upset: when we spent last Christmas at my mother-in-law's house, we ate dinner and opened his gifts separately from everyone else, in the bedroom.
2. Limited and very intense interests.
This is a common symptom of autism. But if you search for "signs of autism" in a search engine, this symptom is usually accompanied by phrases like "interest in car numbers or train schedules" or "can list all orders of insects in alphabetical order." In other words, such interests are described as very unusual and highly specialized. But it is not always the case.
My son's "special interest" was Thomas the Tank Engine. He was two years old. What two-year-old doesn't like a train cartoon? It didn't seem important to me - a little boy likes a cartoon for little boys. However, looking back, I understand that this love of his for Thomas was not ordinary.
He flatly refused to watch anything other than Thomas the Tank Engine on TV for over a year. He could only read books about Thomas, he could only sleep under the covers with Thomas and in pajamas with Thomas. He had over 50 toy cartoon characters, hundreds of railroad parts, and of course Thomas himself.
Obviously there was too much Thomas in our house, but it was my first child and I thought that was the way it should be.
3. He made up his own words.
Only last year, during my son's diagnosis, I learned that inventing my own words, that is, neologisms, can be a sign. My son's third special interest is wind turbines. The first was Thomas the Tank Engine, which I already mentioned, the second was another cartoon, Jake and the Neverland Pirates. That's just turbines and windmills, he called "unduny".
I don't even know why and where it came from, but if you dared to call the windmill something else in his presence, then he would become furious. As he grew older, he nevertheless stopped calling them unduns and began to use the correct terminology.
He still makes up his own words from time to time. But now he is older and understands that his word is not a real word, so he also uses the correct names. At school, if he calls something with his own word, then the teacher asks him to draw what he means - this helps her understand what he is talking about.
4. Overreaction to odors.
I remember one moment from my son's early childhood. Once we went to kindergarten by taxi. It was cold, it was snowing, and we were waiting outside for a taxi. The car pulled up and I opened the door to help my son (he was then three years old) get inside.
Then it happened. He yelled, "I'm not going, this uncle STINKS!" Horror. The moment was not just memorable, I was very uncomfortable. He may not have smelled of violets, but from my point of view, his smell was all right. I couldn't believe my child was behaving like this.
I now understand my son's sensitivity to smells better and tell other people that if he is bothered by a smell, it should be taken seriously. For example, he literally cannot be in the same room as peanut butter. At times, when he doesn't like the smell of dinner, he refuses to leave his room all evening. (Also see: Sensory Processing Disorders in Children.)
5. Frequent ear infections
Until recently, I had no idea that frequent ear infections were common in children with autism.
In fact, on average, children with autism are 10 times more likely to have ear infections during the first three years of life than children without autism.
My son had persistent ear infections and eventually had to have tubes put in his ears. Frequent infections did not really bother me - I also had them in childhood. I thought it was a normal part of childhood.
6. Everything should be the way he thinks is right.
If something, in his opinion, was going wrong, he threw a huge tantrum. I just thought, “Wow, these two-year-olds are really hard to handle.” Sometimes what I considered "whims" went on endlessly.
Now I know that these were nervous breakdowns, not whims. They were caused by his difficulty with transitions and changes in the usual daily routine - two signs of autism. But it seemed to me that the kids just behave like that. There is a huge difference between normal whims and a nervous breakdown, but if you don't know about a child's autism, you won't know what to look for.
I remember one tantrum he had when he was two and a half years old. We just got home, but he still didn't get out of the car. In the end, I just carried him into the house in my arms - I could not wait for him all day. He stood in front of the front door, yelling and shouting “I want to go! I want to go!” again and again.
I don't even know how long this went on. I tried to ignore it, because I knew that's the way to handle "whims". As a result, I simply could not stand it, took him out of the house, led him to the car, after which he reached the front door and calmed down on this.
Five years have passed, but little has changed since then. It's just that the most intense tantrums are less common now.
We recently went to a fast food place on our way home and I asked him and his sister to take their food home. He ran into the house before us, and when I went in, I found him lying on the couch with his face buried in the sofa cushion. I realized that I had accidentally given him the wrong package, and he brought food into the house for my sister.
When your child has autism, mixed bags at the table are a huge problem. I said that he would take his food into the house, so the food had to be his. In the end, he grabbed his food bag, walked with it to the car, fastened his seat belt, then unfastened his belt and went into the house with his food bag. Meanwhile, it was pouring rain outside.
7. He could not part with his bottle for a long time.
Children with autism often fail to adjust to changes in their lives. Now I'm sure that's why it took us so long to wean him off the bottle. He never had a pacifier, so at first I thought the bottle just helped him calm down, but that wasn't the only reason he couldn't part with it.
Resistance to change was not limited to this. He refused to take off his shoes in the house, sometimes going to bed in them. It took half the winter for him to start putting on his winter hat, and then half the summer for him to agree to the panama hat.
Now I'm once again trying to find exactly the same sneakers for him, as he grows quickly, and his foot size often changes.
8. Dislike for certain tactile sensations.
Do you know how some people take adorable pictures when their little ones put their hands in their cake on their first birthday? We didn't. As soon as the son touched the cake, he did not like the feeling so much that he began to sob, and nothing could console him. It was impossible to persuade him to try the cake, we could not even calm him down.
Such an unusual reaction for a child, but he was very young, this did not cause us concern. Looking back, I remember that he actively avoided certain sensations on his legs. On the beach or in the yard, he lifted his feet and screamed because he could not bear the touch of grass or sand on his toes.
9. He did not have the classic symptoms of autism.
Perhaps the main reason I missed all the symptoms of high-functioning autism in my son is that he did not have the "classic" signs at all.
By his first birthday he could say 20 words, by 18 months he spoke short sentences.
He had no major delays in major development milestones. At two years old, he knew letters, numbers, figures, planets and more. At the age of three, he could write his name, recognized some words, began to read by syllables.
So I ignored my intuition that he was different. Every description of autism that I came across said that he must have a speech delay and that he must not make eye contact.
But, we must remember that autism is a whole spectrum, and all children are very different.
So, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, if you are a parent and something is bothering you, don't ignore your intuition and talk to your doctor.
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