Autism Spectrum Disorder, Literature Review Example

The term autistic is derived from a Greek word which means self or “autos”. Psychiatrists historically used this description with individuals who were not interested in the world around them. They appeared to be involved in only themselves and had no conception of anything outside of their immediate environment. Often the children may not even form a vocabulary until well into their toddler years or beyond, if at all. It has been found that there certain characteristics that individuals must possess in order to be diagnosed with autistic disorder. Those are impairments in communication, impairments in social interaction, and restricted or repetitive patterns of behavior in certain individual interests and activities. In order to be classified with autistic disorder, an individual must have impairments in all three or at least two categories. There are three types of ASDs and they vary in their severity: Autistic Disorder, Asperger Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (Hall, 2009). This paper focuses on selective attention, which is considered as one of the symptoms that children with ASDs display and the causes of this have been investigated. Attentional deficiency is the core problem that causes an individual with ASDs to have an attentional focus on one object and have difficulties with the attention shifting and recognition of faces.

Commonalities in ASD

The symptoms of ASDs can often appear before three years of age and last throughout an individual’s life. Some children might appear ‘normal’ until 24 months, but once they stop gaining new skills or lose the skills that they have, they may appear to have significant problems and should be taken to a physician for testing (Hall, 2009). There are certain symptoms that some ASDs’ children might have like the avoidance of eye contact and the preference to be alone.  They also have problems understanding other people’s feelings or expressing their own feelings; they have delayed speech and language skills and have obsessive interests (Hall, 2009). This disorder affects these children negatively and makes them unhappy, unsatisfied the whole time and might make these children malfunction and dependent (cognitively and physically) for the rest of their life. This disorder has been correlated to certain factors that might cause this disorder.  Researchers indicated that autism is caused by many factors like genetic influences and some environmental factors (Hall, 2009).

Review of Literature

A study by Magnee, de Gelder, van Engeland, & Kemner (2011), showed the importance of the relationship between multisensory integration and attention in autism. Multisensory integration of stimuli helps to understand the social environment and intention of others, which is considered important for awareness of visual and auditory stimuli. This study indicated that individuals with autism have difficulty incorporating information across auditory and visual modalities and difficulties with attention especially when they need to shift attention between auditory and visual modulation. In this study, individuals with ASDs were exposed to visual and auditory stimulus (Magnee, de Gelder, van Engeland, & Kemner, 2011). They were shown 12 happy and 12 fearful faces as visual stimuli and 12 happy and 12 fearful vocalizations. The participants were instructed to response to both targets. The goal of this study was to explore the impact of attention on the MSI. The results showed that individuals with ASDs have attention deficiency and problems with paying attention to different modalities. It was also shown that individuals with ASDs have deficits in MSI in the divided attention condition which resulted in that attention being considered an important component to integrate individuals with ASDs to both faces and voices. They also reported that being able to divide attention to different object from different sources was considered abnormal in ASDs individuals (Magnee, de Gelder, van Engeland, & Kemner, 2011).

Limited attention and difficulty to shift the attention in individuals with ASDs might also cause difficulties in face recognition, according to study by Chawarska, Volkmar, & Klin (2010). This study examined 42 toddlers around 32 months of age with ASDs and 31 toddlers with the age of 29 months with developmental delay (DD). They were seated in a car seat in front of a computer monitor, two speakers and four lights located from outside of the monitor. The toddlers were instructed to look at the screen. First, they were exposed to nonsocial trials; half of them were exposed to direct gaze and the other half to averted gaze trails (Chawarska, Volkmar, & Klin, 2010). The results demonstrated that faces showed a low ability to engage toddler with ASDs comparing with other groups. They over concentrated their attention on certain favored objects that access them to favored experiences.

The difficulty of the face processing with attention problems in toddlers with ASDs is relevant to impairments in social skills (Chawarska, Volkmar, & Klin, 2010). Autistic individuals face difficulty choosing faces amongst other stimuli in the environment; fail to monitor the gaze track of the faces and could not successfully get the right cues of faces. It has sometimes been said that autistic persons actually have so much incoming information that they must shut their minds to everything but a certain amount and filter out the rest in order to cope. This could be the reason for the difficulty in recognizing faces when other stimuli was present also. It also indicated that when children with DD were shown to faces, they displayed attention and started to ask questions about whether they know these faces and made comparison while individual with ASDs displayed limited questions or classification to these faces (Chawarska, Volkmar, & Klin, 2010).

Another study supported the hypothesis of the attention problems and the difficulties of getting information from faces that individual with ASDs exhibited. The participants were twenty-six individuals with autism and eighteen individuals with Williams’s syndrome… They were enrolled from special education needs attached to normal school. The results of this research paper showed that individual with ASDs have difficulties shifting attention between objects and faces and faces do not seizure their attention (Remington, Swettenham, Campbell, & Coleman, 2008). When they exposed to pictures of people, they displayed less face gaze and their gaze shifted in the opposite way.  ASDs individuals also displayed abnormal gaze behavior toward face information in many conditions like social scenes or in movie.  It also suggested that spending individuals with ASDs less time exposing to faces form early age, might decrease the improvement of social and communication skills that they can gain from face signs (Remington, Swettenham, Campbell, & Coleman, 2008).

A recent study demonstrated the correlation between impairments of face processing and biological factors (Remington, Campbell, & Swettenham, Attentional status of faces for people with autism spectrum disorder, 2012). The brain has cortical areas such as fusiform face area, FFA and subcortical like (amygdala) networks that connected to face processing. The participants of this study were 16 adults with ASD and 16 typical adult. In the central of the screen a target name was offered. The name was presented alone or among a list of words or none. On each section, a distractor face was presented at the side of the lists. The participants were instructed to press a button and ignore the face stimuli to complete the mission. According to Remington, Campbell, & Swettenham (2012), autistic individuals have lacked activation in AFF. Impairments of face orienting are considered as symptoms with individuals who were diagnosis with autism.  ASDs individuals were reported to engage and paid attention to objects than faces. They have been looking less at people and spend less time looking at faces because of the attention deficiency toward faces. After MRI examination to ASDs individuals, there was lack of attentional modulation of the neural responses to face stimuli (Remington, Campbell, & Swettenham, Attentional status of faces for people with autism spectrum disorder, 2012).

A behavioral observation occurred in individuals with autism and indicated that frontal negativities associated with attention are reduced or absent in the autistic brain. The neural systems are not also working appropriately in autistic brain. Cognitive interpretation suggests “a failure of top-down attentional control” (Belmonte & Yurgelun-Todd, 2003). The impairments of shifting attention between sensory modalities, spatial locations and object structures have been observed in this study. The result showed that autism is considered as a neurodevelopment disorder (Belmonte & Yurgelun-Todd, 2003).

The hypothesis in this study indicated that disorder of the frontal cortex (PFC) of the brain might cause the social and cognation deficit in autistic individuals. They were verifying metabolic, structural and neurotransmitters abnormalities in the PFC in ASDs individuals. They reached this result after observing patients with PFC damage. Resisting distractors associated and depend on network of the brain area (Bayliss & Kritikos, 2011). This study also associated autism with impairments of executive function which they refer to set of high cognation progression that allow individuals respond to the environment like flexibility , working memory. The study concluded that ASDs individuals do not have serious impairments in inhibitory control but difficulty ignoring the processing of irrelevant information. This study considered this result as an optimist step for ASDs individuals developing and learning (Bayliss & Kritikos, 2011).

Yet another research study showed that Individuals with ASDs usually focus their attention on one irrelevant object in the environment. This fixation is considered critical and thus gives the brain limited sensory and information processing. The deficit of social interaction and other skills in autistic individuals is related to attentional problems (Herrington, Nymberg, Faja, Price, & Schultz, 2012).  Researchers in this study indicated that individual with autism showed difficulties filtering out distracting stimuli and their performances have been affected by the distractors. The main hypothesis of this study was that the activity within the brain is dependent on both a task-driven and a stimulus driven process which are thus related to human movement and orientation. The study predicted that the activity would be increased with the goal-oriented stimuli versus random stimuli. The study also concluded that ASDs individuals appeared to course distractors at higher level of perceptual load than control group did. This study concluded that having impairments in social interaction which children with ASDs experience decreases the level of orienting toward faces.

Information Gained

As one can see from the studies above, there have been numerous studies and countless hours of research performed in order to understand the nature of ASD and, more focally, the nature of the social communication impairment issue. Many experts believe this is key in determining how to best treat the disorder. There is obviously an atypical attention span when one measures a social level of attention that individuals with ASD possess and this is evident from the early years where it progresses as the child grows.

It is evident that the average child will show a preference to people during their first few months of life and well into their toddler years. Likewise, they will be riveted by sounds and lights, albeit any kind of noise or movement will benefit their cognitive development. However, with autistic children, this is not the case. The focus is on non-social aspects of life, such as nonliving objects like books or stuffed animals. Often a child with autism will pick one thing and become fixated, unwilling to leave this focal point for something else. Also, with the lack of development in social skills, it is not any wonder why the language and communication in an autistic child will suffer from an early age. Therapists must find a way to communicate properly with these children in order to help reverse the regressive behavior and provide a way for the children to thrive in a world built around the demand for social interaction.

The studies presented above dealt with brain functions and neural transmissions. It is evident that ASD is a spectrum of disorders that rests inside the mind, but is definitely a physical malady because there is more evidence of this problem now than ever before in the past. Perhaps it is because we understand more about how the brain functions and how triggers are sensitized and desensitized in the various areas of the brain to deal with cognitive processes. It is for all of these reasons that research is crucial if there is going to be a breakthrough in the area of ASD.

The question is, however, where to begin. Should one begin with the spectrum of disorders or should one begin with one small aspect of the disorder and proceed from there? This is difficult because it is sufficient to say that ASD affects a child in various ways and no one child is affected like another in every way. Each brain is different, thus each instance of ASD is going to present in a varied condition. Also, researchers must understand the community is dealing with a wide variance of autism disorders in relation to their respected severity in each classification. Those children with Asperger’s are going to have much different presentations clinically than a child with full blown non-communicative autism.

Also, as pointed out by Bayliss & Kritikos (2011), many in the general population who are supposed to be ‘average’ are going to have difficulties in the perception of focal stimuli and other sensory perceptions. This does not necessarily mean the average person in the general population suffers from some type of ASD; it simply means the disorder is much more difficult to treat and also to detect than many would believe. There are many individuals who are ‘average’ in the population, but are quite intelligent and are deemed to be a little ‘off’. Does this mean they may have a slight genetic predisposition for Asperger’s or some other milder form of ASD? This is another question that researchers must be willing to devote the time and energy to understanding and further exploring.

Because of the advances in the current technology of our society, the medical community is at its prime when speaking in terms of testing and research. There is no limit to what science has the ability to uncover if given the time and resources to explore various aspects of ASD. The visual perception and attentional problems are only a small classification of a plethora of information that may be researched and, hence, knowledge gained about this disorder so that children and their parents are able to live more fulfilled lives and enjoy a better and peaceful way of communication in a world that offers limitless possibilities for the future.

Conclusion

The explosion of instances of autism and the spectrum of autism disorders over the course of the past decade have raised many concerns in the minds of professionals and the general public. There have been concerns ranging from the consumption of nutrients in a pregnant woman’s diet to concerns about the vaccinations that infants are receiving and whether or not this is causing the autism development in children. There are also concerns about whether plastics used in the development and processing of foods are contributing to some ASD instances. While many of these are valid and many of these are farfetched, all of these concerns have the same underlying foundation. The population, as a whole, is concerned about the spectrum of autism and what it entails. There is little understanding, despite the many hours of research and the strides that have been made in finding answers to specific questions. We do know more now than before, but there is much more to learn.

The brain is a large network of information and it may be that we are incapable, as humans, to access all of its secrets. The research into ASD continues and grows exponentially every day; therefore, the hope for some sort of cure or way of controlling and helping the individuals suffering from this disorder grows. The need for more in depth research into attentional deficiency is crucial, as is the need for more in depth research into other areas of the spectrum of autism. It is the only way to provide answers, and essentially, a cure.

References

Bayliss, A., & Kritikos, A. (2011). Brief report: Perceptual load and the Autism Spectrum in typically developed individuals. Journal of Autism Development Disorders, 41, 1573-1578.

Belmonte, M., & Yurgelun-Todd, D. (2003). F unctional anatomy of impaired selective attention and compensatory processing in autism. Cognitive Brain Research, 13, 651-664.

Chawarska, K., Volkmar, F., & Klin, A. (2010). Limited attentional bias for faces in toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 67(2), 178-185.

Hall, L. J. (2009). Autism Spectrum Disorder, from theory to practice. New Jersy: Pearson.

Herrington, J., Nymberg, C., Faja, S., Price, E., & Schultz, R. (2012). The responsiveness of biological motion processing areas to selective attention towards goals. Neuroimage, 63, 581-590.

Magnee, M., de Gelder, B., van Engeland, H., & Kemner, C. (2011). Multisensory integration and attention in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from event-related potentials. PLoS ONE, 6(8).

Remington, A., Campbell, R., & Swettenham, J. (2012). Attentional status of faces for people with autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 16(1), 59-73.

Remington, A., Swettenham, J., Campbell, R., & Coleman, M. (2008). Selective attention and perceptual load in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Psychological Science, 20(11), 1388-1393.