Causes of Autism

Autism is Not Caused by a Lack of Affection

The idea that bad parenting can cause autism is a misconception that has persisted for decades. In fact, autistic children are usually very loved and cherished by their parents. It is vitally important to understand that lack of parental affection will never cause autism.

Children who have been very severely mistreated often appear to show autistic tendencies. These may include stereotyped behaviors (such as playing with their hands), impaired speech and lack of social skills. However, once the mistreatment ceases, an abused child will grow socially and emotionally, in a manner that would be very difficult for an autistic child.

Brain Damage

The group of symptoms we call autism appears to be caused by brain damage, probably before birth or in very early infancy. It may eventually be tracked down to a single malfunctioning area of the brain, but that area has yet to be identified. This is partly because autism most often appears as one part of a larger pattern of retardation, with intelligence generally impaired as well.

However, some high-functioning autistic individuals are very intelligent. These ‘purely autistic’ sufferers may score 100 on an IQ test, and yet be crippled in the spheres affected by autism. For example, their understanding of other human beings will remain limited, and the world will always seem to them to be an unpredictable and incoherent place.

What Systems are Affected in the Brain?

Autism researcher Uta Frith has proposed an innovative explanation for autism’s unusual and seemingly unrelated symptoms. In her view, autistic sufferers have a very low drive for central coherence. What does this mean? Most of us perceive the world as a coherent whole. Importantly, we see patterns in life, and are able to infer and draw parallels between similar situations. We feel that our social interactions are governed by underlying principles, and to adhere to subtle rules of cause and effect, just like the physical world. We all have a sort of ‘belief framework’, where we subconsciously file memories, knowledge and experiences into categories. In short, we tend to see (or think we see) life’s larger patterns, particular in human interactions.

According to the theory, this is not so for an autistic person. If an experience cannot be compared with other, similar, experiences in a belief framework, then life must seem highly unpredictable and unreasonable. No wonder many sufferers act as if the world is a terrifying place. It seems that nearly every experience feels unique and unprecedented, particularly social experiences.

This is not to say that autistic people are unable to see and create patterns. In nearly all autistic individuals, there is still an obvious drive for local coherence. What this means is that individual sections of the brain are still looking to form patterns, but do not assign an underlying or deeper meaning to behavior. Perhaps this is why many sufferers seem to take comfort in stereotyped, repetitive behaviors. Movement of light through the hands, repeated phrases, a tidy house, lines of toys or multiplication tables (for example) are patterns small enough to understand.

Theory of Mind

Why do sufferers have such severe social problems? Between the ages of one and four, a normal child develops the most important part of their personal belief framework: the theory of mind. In short, this is the understanding that everyone else has a separate mind from you. Others do not feel as you feel, know what you know or see what you see. This sounds simple, but is in fact a huge achievement for a young mind. It seems that a sufferer of autism never quite makes this leap. Behind the inability to read social cues and frustration at other people is, quite probably, a lack of theory of mind.