Causes of Childhood Autism

Autism is a disorder that occurs when there are abnormalities in the development of the brain. It is characterized by a comprehensive pronounced shortage of social communication and interaction, as well as a tendency to repetitive actions and limited scope of interests. In most cases, all of the above signs appear even before three years. Conditions that are more or less similar to autism, but with milder manifestations, are referred to physicians as a group of autistic disorders.

For a long time it was believed that the triad of autism symptoms can be caused by one common cause for all, which can affect the cognitive, genetic and neuronal levels. Recently, however, researchers are increasingly focusing on the assumption that autism is a disorder of a complex species that is caused by a variety of causes that can often interact with each other at the same time.

Studies that have been conducted to determine the causes of childhood autism have gone in many directions. The first tests of children with autism did not give any evidence that their nervous system was damaged. At the same time, Dr. Kanner, who introduced the term "autism" into medicine, noted several similarities in parents of such children, such as rational approach to the upbringing of their child, high level of intelligence. As a result, in the middle of the last century a hypothesis was proposed that autism is psychogenic (that is, it arises as a result of psychological trauma). One of the most ardent advocates of this hypothesis was the psychotherapist from Austria, Dr. B. Bettelheim, who founded his own clinic for children in America. Pathology in the development of social relations with others, violations of activity in relation to the world, he linked with the fact that parents were coldly treated their child, suppressing him as a person. That is, according to this theory, the entire responsibility for the development of autism in the child was placed on the parents, which often became for them the cause of serious mental trauma.

Comparative studies, however, showed that autistic children survived no more situations that could potentially hurt them than healthy children, and the parents of a child with autism were often more devoted and caring than other parents. Thus, the hypothesis of the psychogenic origin of this disease had to be forgotten.

Moreover, many modern researchers claim that many signs of insufficient central nervous system function in children suffering from autism have been observed. It is for this reason among modern authors that the early early autism is believed to have a special pathology of its own origin, to which the central nervous system leads. There are many hypotheses about where this insufficiency comes from and where it is localized.

Now intensive studies are under way to check the main provisions of these hypotheses, but unambiguous conclusions have not yet been received. There is only evidence that autistic children often have symptoms of brain dysfunction, along with pathologies of biochemical metabolism. These diseases can be caused by a variety of causes, such as chromosomal abnormalities, genetic predisposition, congenital disorders. Also, the failure of the nervous system can arise as a result of damage to the central nervous system, which in turn is due to complicated birth or pregnancy, an early developed schizophrenic process or the consequences of neuroinfection.

The American scientist E. Ornitz investigated more than 20 various pathogenic factors that can cause the onset of Kanner's syndrome. The emergence of autism can also result in a wide range of diseases, such as tuberous sclerosis or congenital rubella. Summarizing all the above, most specialists today speak about the multiplicity of the reasons for the emergence (polytheology) of the syndrome of childhood early autism and how it manifests itself in various pathologies and its polynozology.