ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that can cause impairment in daily life activities in terms of behavior, interests or activities. ASD is not a fatal disease; it is present from early childhood causing impairment in everyday functioning. It isn’t easy to diagnose as early as five, whereas certain diagnostic features are seen early.
For further diagnosis of autism, the clinicians and psychiatrists must carefully examine the child or the adult. For instance, to make a clinical diagnosis, the doctors are advised to look at the history of the child and many different aspects. These aspects can include a child’s interests, activities and functionality in a social environment. All of these aspects together help in making the diagnosis of ASD.
How is Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosed?
For making the official autism diagnosis, the doctors must be very patient as, according to WHO, a child can not be diagnosed with any disorder until five. Hence, the doctors or the psychiatrists have to wait for the child to show certain behaviors to diagnose an autistic child from another.
According to DSM 5, an autistic child shows different activities than a normal child. Core diagnostic features are evident in the developmental period, but interventions, compensation and current sports may cause difficulties in at least some contexts. This psychiatrist can mix up many other disorders such as language and pragmatic social communication. For instance, children with ASD or LSD show abnormal nonverbal communication problems. Therefore, the doctors must wait until five years of age to properly diagnose different criteria for different disorders.
Problematic Behaviors in ASD
The easiest method of distinguishing an autistic child from another child is to study the criteria from DSM 5. In this criteria, different diagnosis criteria are given to understand how ASD differs from other disorders.
- Problem in Communication
The first symptoms of ASD involve frequent delays in language development. Furthermore, it is accompanied by a lack of social interests or unusual social interactions. For instance, a child may carry toys but never play with them. They also show odd patterns of playing end contacting other people. At this point, a doctor may diagnose the child with deafness, but it is typically ruled out with other tests.
As it is not a degenerative disorder, the symptoms are marked in early childhood or school years. Different inclusion programs are used for children to feel comfortable communicating in special classrooms and the special education system. On the other hand, many other types of problem behaviors are shown in an autistic child.
- Persistent and unchanged behavior for a stimuli
When a child reaches the second year of age, he shows repetitive behaviors, and the absence of typical play becomes more prominent. For example, a child may typically eat the same food or watch the same video multiple times, which may be considered abnormal.
Psychiatrists can only differentiate between normal and repetitive behaviors based on the behavior’s type, frequency and intensity. These examples involve that if a child loves to line up objects for hours, he becomes very distressed and shows agitated behavior when disturbed.