- [Voiceover] So autism spectrum disorder
is a really broad social disorder that affects the way
that someone communicates and interacts with other people.
And the reason that I say it's a really broad disorder,
the reason we call it a "spectrum disorder"
is because each person with autism spectrum disorder
is affected a little differently.
No two people with autism spectrum disorder
are exactly the same.
So we say that different people
with autism spectrum disorder fall along a spectrum,
and along this spectrum there are different symptoms,
different challenges and different abilities
that vary a lot in severity and vary a lot
between different people with autism spectrum disorder.
So while this is a spectrum disorder and everyone
with autism spectrum disorder has different experiences,
there are a few key signs that are common
among people with autism spectrum disorder,
and we're gonna check these out so that we can understand
a little bit more about what autism spectrum disorder is.
So there are a few different ways that we could characterize
these common signs of autism spectrum disorder.
I'm just gonna do it in this way,
but there are some other possible ways out there too.
So first, let's pop down communication and social signs.
This will be our first category here.
And next, we'll write down behavioral signs.
And then our last category,
let's put responses to environmental stimuli.
Sort of just the way someone responds
to things that they see or they encounter,
and this will make more sense as we get to it.
All right, so let's start off by looking
at this first category here, communication and social signs.
So, I'm gonna draw a face here, and I'm gonna draw
this expression here that's supposed to look like boredom.
Now, I'm no artist, so you might need
to kinda use your imagination here to see the boredom,
but that's what it's supposed to be.
So, for someone with autism spectrum disorder,
they might not really notice or pickup
on this facial expression here and realize
that this person is trying to indicate that they're bored.
They might have trouble noticing these sorts
of nonverbal cues that are often used when people chat,
so someone with autism spectrum disorder
might continue a conversation with this person here
and not really pick up on this boredom,
because aren't really aware of this nonverbal cue,
this facial expression that's supposed to show boredom.
So let's look at another nonverbal cue
just so we get a better idea.
So maybe instead of being bored, this person might be,
I don't know, getting a little defensive for some reason,
so let's cross their arms here like this,
the way we sometimes do when we're feeling defensive
and this might be this person's way
of showing that they're getting defensive
about something in the conversation.
And again, for someone with autism spectrum disorder,
they might not really see this arm crossing
as a sign of defensiveness.
This nonverbal cue doesn't really indicate to them
that this person here is feeling defensive,
so they might continue on with the conversation
as though nothing is happening,
because this arm crossing's not really telling him anything.
So maybe we can kinda summarize this as trouble
understanding the emotions and behaviors of others.
So this is one of the types of communication
and social signs that we see
in someone with autism spectrum disorder.
And again, keep in mind that autism spectrum disorder
is just that, it's a spectrum,
so people might have different degrees of trouble
understanding the behaviors of others,
maybe a little, maybe a lot, it varies a lot
between different people with the disorder,
but you can imagine here that if someone
with autism spectrum disorder doesn't quite see
and read the emotions and behaviors of others,
if they don't quite understand communication in the same way
as people without autism spectrum disorder do,
well, this can make it a little tricky for them
to communicate with others, right?
So for children with autism spectrum disorder,
they might not quite know how to express themselves
and communicate what they need or what they want,
so they might grab or scream because they don't really have
any other way to get what they need or what they want,
and for kids that are a bit older
and have autism spectrum disorder,
well, not really being able to see or read the emotions
of others and not really being able to communicate
in these sorts of ways themselves,
this can make it a little tricky for them
to connect with other people.
So sometimes for people with autism spectrum disorder,
they might struggle to fit into a group of people
or maybe they just prefer to hang out on their own.
All right, so if move to our next category here,
we've got behavioral signs of autism spectrum disorder.
So to check out some of these,
let's actually make a graph here
showing different levels of interest in activities,
and stay with me here, it'll make more sense as we go along.
So let's make our y-axis
of our graph here "level of interest"
and we'll use this pink color here
to draw what we might expect for a kid
and we'll use this green color here to draw
what we might see for a kid with autism spectrum disorder,
and let's put a few different activities down here.
So we'll do that on our x-axis.
So maybe we'll pop down activities or interests like sports,
maybe we'll pop down soccer and horseback riding,
and let's put down interest in cars and playing with blocks.
So these are some of our activites
and we'll look at the different levels of interest
that we might expect kids to have in these activities.
So maybe for horseback riding here,
we could kinda say that we would expect a kid
to be about this interested in horseback riding.
It's kinda arbitrary, but you know,
some kids like horseback riding, some kids don't,
so let's put that about here.
Now, for me, I loved horseback riding.
I loved it way more than the average kid,
so I'm just gonna put down where I would be,
which would be way up here, way more interested
than probably what you would expect for the average kid.
And if we look at soccer, you know, lots of kids
like soccer, but lots of kids don't like soccer,
but you might be more likely to play soccer,
maybe you play at a gym or after school with your friends
and that's maybe not so much the case
with horseback riding, so maybe more kids
like soccer than they do horseback riding.
So maybe we'll say that the level of interest
that we might expect for soccer would be
a little bit higher, so let's put it up here.
And cars, I mean, some kids
are interested in cars, but some aren't.
Maybe we'll put that a little bit lower
than both soccer and horseback riding.
And then playing with blocks, you know,
a lot of kids dig playing with blocks.
I'd say that's probably a pretty common interest
of a lot of kids, at least at a younger age,
so maybe we'll make that the highest one here.
So these are just some hypothetical levels of interest
that we would maybe expect from kids.
So for kids with autism spectrum disorder,
one of these signs, these behavioral signs that we see,
is what we call "restrictive behavior,"
and what we mean by that is that their interest
can be really restricted or limited compared
to what we might expect from a child just in general,
a kid without autism spectrum disorder,
and when they do have an interest in something,
they can often be quite a bit more interested
than what we might expect in general.
So maybe for someone with autism spectrum disorder,
they really don't show any interest at all in any sports,
not soccer, not horseback riding, no sports,
and they aren't really keen on playing with blocks either,
but they're really, really, really into cars.
They love anything to do with cars,
so their interest level is way up here.
Maybe if they were able to, they would spend all day
thinking and playing and talking about cars.
So we might say that their interests
are kind of restricted to cars,
and there's pretty much no interest in any of these
other hobbies, not even a little bit, like we might expect.
Now, trying to decide whether kid's interests
are really restrictive, that can be a little subjective,
a little hard to figure out.
I remember when I was a kid, I really didn't care
about anything other than horseback riding.
My level of interest for horses was way up here,
way more than what you would expect for a kid,
so it is kinda hard to draw the line on when the kid
is being obsessive or restrictive with their interests,
but in general, people with autism spectrum disorder
have this sort of restrictiveness with their interests.
They might have an activity or two
that they're extremely interested in
and then show almost no interest in any other activities.
Now while we're under this behavior category,
we can also put down "repetitive behavior"
as another kind of sign that people
with autism spectrum disorder can have,
and when we say "repetitive," what we mean
are things like needing a lot of routine.
So maybe a child with autism spectrum disorder really needs
to have the exact same meals everyday,
or the same bedtime rituals, or maybe they have
a habit of repeating certain behaviors
like lining up toys or repeating certain words.
These kinds of repetitive behaviors are another sign
that we can see in kids with autism spectrum disorder.
So let's head over to our last category here,
responses to environmental stimuli.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, let's make another graph here.
We love graphs, so let's make
our x-axis here the stimulus strength,
and you'll see what I mean in a second,
and we'll make our y-axis the responses
that the child has to the stimulus.
So maybe we'll make a low strength stimulus,
something like a dim light.
It doesn't really excite too many people,
a lot of might people might not even notice it,
and then something a little bit stronger
would be a noise, maybe like a car honking,
and then we'll put down a high strength stimulus
as something like being squeezed
really tightly by another person.
So we would probably expect a kid to respond the least
to this dim light, our low strength stimulus,
and then respond a little bit more
to this medium strength stimulus, the car honking,
and then respond the most to this high strength stimulus
of being squeezed really tight.
So we can kind of make this line here.
So we would expect that the higher the stimulus strength,
the greater the response, right?
But it turns out that for a lot of kids
with autism spectrum disorder,
they don't necessarily really follow this line.
Some weak stimuli really, really bother them,
so maybe their response would be kinda up here,
but then for some strong stimuli,
they don't really bother them at all,
so maybe their response would be kinda down here.
So it really does vary which stimuli evoke which responses,
but in general, what we see with a lot of kids
with autism spectrum disorder is that
they don't really follow this expected line here.
So everything we've looked at here,
these aren't the only signs that someone might be
on the autism spectrum, but hopefully now you can see
that autism spectrum disorder is primarily
a social interaction and communication disorder.