The main abnormal manifestations of autistic children include:
1. Rarely make eye contact with others, have special preferences for certain visual stimuli, can stare or squint at a certain direction or object for a long time, and turn a blind eye to things happening around them.
2. Are particularly sensitive to certain normal sounds, or feel inexplicable fear. Once they hear that sound, they will scream, cry, avoid, lose their temper, throw things, and even resist places where these sounds are present.
3. Sometimes they don’t feel pain even if they hit their heads or fall hard, don’t cry or seek comfort, and are not even afraid of injections.
4. There is a partial eclipse or picky eating, and in severe cases, the person is only willing to eat a few types of food. There are also foods and medicines that they do not refuse even if they are very bitter or unpalatable.
The above performances are all due to sensory and perception abnormalities in children with autism. Perception is like a door for the brain to understand the world. All information must be sensed and then sorted and recognized in the brain, and finally, we can make the correct response. In the perception of most autistic children, their world is very different from what we perceive.
Autistic children with abnormal proprioception cannot feel where their bodies are and have difficulty controlling the strength and speed of limb movements. Most paresthesia manifests itself as oversensitivity, while a few manifest as hypoesthesia or dullness. Paresthesia is different in every child with autism.
Most children with autism tend to focus on objects rather than people. They lack the ability to make eye contact with others, and even if they can make eye contact, the time is very short. They like to squint at objects or stare at one part of something for a long time. There is a big difference between autistic children and ordinary people when they look at pictures of human faces. When ordinary people look at faces, they mainly look at the “triangular area” to extract important information. However, children with autism scan asymmetrically, or focus on certain details, such as eyebrows, forehead, cheeks, etc.
Most children with autism are sensitive to touch. For example, some children don’t like bathing, combing, or cutting hair, etc. Some children only like to wear clothes of a certain material and will cry when they change clothes of other textures. When socializing, some children are very resistant to being touched or hugged by others, and avoid being approached by others.
Many children with autism prefer rice, pasta, milk, cold drinks, and puffed foods, but do not like meat, aquatic products, vegetables, fruits, etc. Color, shape, and taste are all their dietary selection criteria. This is related to abnormal taste and smell and is also a manifestation of stereotyped behavior.
Therefore, the world in the eyes of autistic children is very different from that of ordinary people. Parents need to have a full understanding of this and fully understand the sensory abnormalities that autistic children have so that they can understand and help autistic children overcome sensory abnormalities. The impact and distress caused by abnormalities. At the same time, we must not only understand children with autism but also provide early intervention to them to improve their abilities in all aspects so that they can understand the world and integrate into society.