Autistic Spectrum Disorder

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can hinder a patient’s ability to understand and

appropriately react to social cues (Faras ., Al Ateeqi, N., & Tidmarsh, L.10). ASD is a large span

of symptoms, talents, as well as various levels of disability (Faras et al., 2010). A prominent

factor in ASD is the ability to interact with others and to understand social cues (Faras et al.,

2010). This research is relevant since four out of every 10,000 children are being diagnosed with

ASD (Faras et al., 2010). There are many treatments that help including music therapy and social

skills training groups that help enhance children and adults social skills and abilities to function

in everyday society (Golzari, Alamdarloo, & Moradi, 2015) (LaGasse, 2017). Media’s influence

is also a major factor in how patients of ASD learn how to behave in everyday life (Ronson,

2017). I hope to address future patients that have ASD with these findings as well as guardians of

patients with ASD. It is important to address guardians as well as patients with ASD in order to

help promote growth because encouragement from home can make the progress more

substantial. This research topic interests me because I have been working with Glencoe High

School’s Life Skills program and would love to deepen my understanding of some impairments

the children in my class struggle with. I plan to further my education in occupational therapy to

hopefully help children and adults with ASD learn to function in society for a living.

There are many different types of disabilities prominent in children and adults with ASD.

It's been studied that “Autism is one of a group of neurodevelopmental disorders known as

pervasive developmental disorders (PDD). These disorders are characterized by three core

deficits: impaired communication, impaired reciprocal social interaction and restricted, repetitive

and stereotyped patterns of behaviors or interests” (Faras et al., 2010, para. 2). This article
explains that autism is an umbrella term for different disabilities within children and adults who

struggle with understanding social cues and reacting to them, repetitive functions, and a lack of

communication (Faras et al., 2010). All of these impairments fall under the same category of

Autism. There are five types of Autism including autistic disorder, asperger's disorder, rett's

disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder (also referred

to as PDD-NOS) (Faras et al., 2010). Autism has been a disability that has grown from four cases

for every 10,000 people to six cases for every 1,000 people (Faras et al., 2010). With an

increasing rate this condition is becoming more of a focus for many researchers (Faras et al.,

2010). Unfortunately, what causes ASD in patients has not been established yet but there is

helpful information about other aspects of Autism (Faras et al., 2010). For example, there have

been a few findings of parents that have acquired rubella (a disease that is similar to measles)

and cytomegalovirus (a weakened immune system) that caused Autistic Spectrum Disorder in

their offspring (Faras et al., 2010). Other important facts about ASD is although any child can be

born with ASD it is more commonly found in males with a ratio of 4:1 (Faras et al., 2010).

Autistic Spectrum Disorder is not a condition to be overlooked. It has impacted thousands of

people in the United States and will continue to impact many more (Faras et al., 2010).

Understanding the disability will bring awareness to those impacted the most by ASD, leading to

treatments that could one day help patients with Autistic Spectrum Disorder to not only function

properly in society but also contribute in society as well.

Many experiments have been conducted to confirm the impacts of social pressures on

people with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. These pressures include starting or standing close to

someone during a conversation. They found that social pressures have little to no impact on
patients of ASD (Ikuse et al., 2017). One specific study aimed to demonstrate the difference in

young adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorder and young adults without. The study was called

“The Effect of Visual Cues on Performance in the Ultimatum Game in Individuals with Autism

Spectrum Disorder” (Ikuse et al., 2017, para. 1). As the title suggests the ultimatum game was

played to show the relationship of social cues on people with or without ASD (Ikuse et al.,

2017). The Ultimatum game can be described as imagining a company where a boss has a cash

surplus at the end of the fiscal year (Ikuse et al., 2017). He then has to decide whether or not to

use the extra money to give to his employees as bonuses or funnel the extra cash back into the

company. This experiment took thirty individuals with ASD and thirty without and placed them

into the experiment as the boss (Ikuse et al., 2017). The first trial was in a low-stress

environment without any social pressures (Ikuse et al., 2017). The second and final trial

introduced a social pressure of staring, conducted by the boss of the experiment (Ikuse et al.,

2017). In the first trial, individuals with ASD took longer to decide what to do with their extra

money but spread more amongst the employees. The young adults without ASD had a quicker

response time but gave less away to the employees (Ikuse et al., 2017). The final trial

demonstrated that people without ASD were impacted by the social pressure of people staring at

them while patients of Autistic Spectrum Disorder were not impacted by the staring (Ikuse et al.,

2017). The reason for this behavior is because people with ASD have a difficult time

understanding social cues, situations, context and have a harder time empathizing with people

(Ikuse et al., 2017).

While I was researching, I found there are many articles on situations of individuals with

Autistic Spectrum Disorder having issues with victimization. Within these research articles there
are many factors that leave patients with ASD endangered (Brown-Lavoie, Viecili, & Weiss

2014). For example “Age appropriate sexual interest, limited sexual knowledge and experiences,

and social deficits, may place adults with ASD at increased risk” (Brown-Lavoie et al., 2014, p.

2185). Having Autism already puts kids at risk of sexual victimization without mentioning a lack

of knowledge on the subject. This research article showed a connection between the lack of

knowledge and sexual victimization of patients with ASD (Brown-Lavoie, Viecili, & Weiss

2014). On the other side of the spectrum there was a podcast made to highlight the negative

impacts of media (Ronson, 2017). One story consisted of a boy who was diagnosed with

Asperger's Disorder. This specific type of Autism is known to mimic actions of others that he

witnesses or experiences first hand (Ronson, 2017). In the podcast, a boy of roughly 14 years of

age watched free pornography online. Very awkward and unaware of what is socially acceptable

he sent nudity pictures of himself to a girl he had developed a crush on in his class. In the

pornography, he had watched inappropriate pictures being sent between the stars who were

casted ‘in love’ and he mimicked this behavior to the girl he liked. He is now on the registry for

distribution of child pornography as he was the subject of the photograph and the perpetrator of

the crime (Ronson, 2017). Social media portrayed an inappropriate relationship to this boy who

tried to recreate it in his own life, ultimately impacting any future jobs he can recieve or places

he would like to live in the future (Ronson, 2017).

While media's influence can have a negative impact on Autistic patients there are many

available treatments in order to prevent or stop further issues from arising. One treatment studied

was music therapy. This article presents Music Therapy as a new treatment for children with

Autistic Spectrum Disorder(LaGasse, 2017). Music Therapy first assess the child’s current level
of functioning and then will further investigate the future amount of therapy required for the

individual (LaGasse, 2017). Then the children are either spending their time singing or

interpreting music (LaGasse, 2017). Music therapy is labeled as very successful because it is a

low stress environment for the kids to practice social interactions like music (LaGasse, 2017).

Developing social skills is essential to children with ASD because of the impact these skills have

on the ability to function in society (LaGasse, 2017). Another helpful treatment with positive

feedback is social stories interventions, where they gather male students with Autism and share

stories and how best to react to the situation given to them (Golzari et al., 2015). This treatment

used the social skills scale to pre and post assess the male students on their social IQ, showing

their growth from the intervention (Golzari, Alamdarloo, & Moradi, 2015). Factors from the

social stories that were dominant in improving the male student’s social skills were

understanding/perspective-taking, initiating interactions, as well as maintaining interactions with

others (Golzari, Alamdarloo, & Moradi, 2015). The intervention however had no impact on the

student's ability to respond well to others (Golzari, Alamdarloo, & Moradi, 2015).

Each research article was designed to highlight their expected results in order to prove

their research was correct. These studies would be beneficial across the globe because it will help

those with Autistic Spectrum Disorder to function properly in society and spread awareness. This

research has proved that Autism impacts patient’s social interaction skills and impairment of

judgement on socially acceptable behavior. There was no obvious bias because each article was

dedicated to accurate results in order to spread information. In the first research article “The

Ultimatum Game” although the experiment was extremely interesting and well designed it would

have been more accurate if more people were involved creating more exact results. The Social
Interventions research and the music therapy research article could have addressed children and

adults instead of just children to gain a larger range on how helpful this therapy is on patients

with ASD.

People with Autistic Spectrum Disorder have a harder time interpreting and reacting

appropriately to social cues (Faras et al., 2010). Music therapy and social stories interventions

for people with ASD are great investments for teaching them how to behave themselves in a

social environment (Golzari, Alamdarloo, & Moradi, 2015) and (LaGasse, 2017). A major

question raised throughout my research is other kinds of treatments available for patients with

Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Another prominent question I wondered was if social media had

positive impacts of children and adults with Autism. What seems to be missing from my research

are more ways to help youths with ASD practice social interactions to enable them in the future.

This research will influence my future career because now I am aware of how Autistic Spectrum

Disorder negatively impacts people with ASD and how best I can help them learn to

appropriately behave themselves in public as well as carry on conversations hopefully earning a

job where they will be successful and helpful to others around them.
 APA Citations

Brown-Lavoie, S., Viecili, M. & Weiss, J. (2014). Sexual knowledge and victimization in adults

with autism spectrum disorders. ​Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44​,

2185-2196. doi:​10.1007/s10803-014-2093-y.

Faras, H., Al Ateeqi, N., & Tidmarsh, L. (2010). Autism spectrum disorders. ​Annals of Saudi

medicine​, ​30​(4), 295. doi:​ ​10.4103/0256-4947.65261

Golzari, F., Alamdarloo, G. & Moradi, S. (2015). The effect of a social stories intervention on

the social skills of male students with autism spectrum disorder. ​Sage Open, 5​, 1-8.

doi:10.1177/21582440151621599 (Golzari, Alamdarloo, & Moradi, 2015).

Ikuse, D., Tani, M., Itachash, T., Yamada, H., Ohta, H., Morita, T., ... Iwanami, A. (2017). The

effect of visual cues on performance in the ultimatum game in individuals with autism

spectrum disorder. ​Psychiatry Research, 259​, 176-183.

doi:​10.1016/j.psychres.2017.10.013

LaGasse, A. (2017). Social outcomes in children with autism spectrum disorder: a review of

music therapy outcomes. ​Patient Related Outcome Measures​, ​8​, 23–32.

Ronson, J. ( 2017, November 3). Episode 4: Children. ​The Butterfly Effect with Jon Ronson​.