First, the behavior of autistic children:

1. Social barriers: Most autistic children lack interest in people in infancy. When their mothers hug them and feed them, they don't put their bodies close to their mothers, they don't watch their mothers smile, and they don't watch their parents walk at ordinary times. After 6~7 months, I still can't tell the difference between relatives and strangers. I don't sound like a normal child, but I cry or look quiet. Some sick children, even if 1~2 years old, have normal or almost normal development, but they are hungry after the onset. When you are in pain or uncomfortable, you don't run to your parents for food comfort, or just hold their hands to get something, instead of expressing it with words or gestures. Children with this disease are often indifferent to the departure or return of their parents. Even if their parents stand by, they will associate with them, and they will not look at their parents, which makes them extremely lonely. Autistic children also lack mutual social interaction, which is manifested in not interacting with the children around them, and it is even more impossible to establish friendship.

2. Language communication barriers: Language communication barriers are more obvious in the symptoms of autism, and the specific manifestations are as follows:

(1) Autistic children often cry or scream to express their discomfort or needs. Older children may hold hands with adults and walk towards what they want. Lacking corresponding facial expressions, they often appear indifferent, and rarely use actions such as nodding, shaking their heads and swinging. To express their wishes.

(2) Language development is slow or underdeveloped: Sick children often show language development later than their peers, and some even don't develop. According to the report, about half of the sick children remain silent and only express their demands through gestures or other forms. There are also some sick children whose language function appears before the age of 2~3, and then gradually declines or even completely loses.

(3) The language is the same as the content, and the form is abnormal: even if the language exists, autistic children still have many problems, such as walking on tiptoe. Sick children often do not take the initiative to talk to others, do not maintain or ask questions, or just pester the same topic repeatedly, regardless of other people's reactions. They often "talk" to people, not to people, so language communication is very difficult. Stereotyped and repetitive language and imitated language are also common. When talking to a sick child, he often only repeats what you say. Others will imitate TV, radio or what others said at that time or after a while. Some sick children are talking to themselves or complaining and enjoying themselves. In addition, autistic children can also have abnormalities in pronunciation, intonation, speech speed, language rhythm and light and heavy sounds, and what they say is strange or unremarkable. Some sick children often misuse personal pronouns, saying "you" as "I" and "I" as "he".

3. Narrow interests: adhere to the same format and ritual sexual behavior (repetitive rigid behavior).

(1) Narrow interest and abnormal attachment behavior: Autistic children are not interested in toys and games that ordinary children like, especially imaginative games, but are particularly interested in things that are not used as toys at ordinary times, such as wheels and bottle caps. Some sick children are attached to plastic bags, door locks and some fruits. For example, there is a 3-year-old sick woman who holds a big red brick weighing 2.5kg all day, and even refuses to let go when sleeping. If the brick is forcibly taken away, she will be upset and lose her temper. It is rare for such a sick child to become attached to biology. They are often interested in non-main features of objects, such as touching the smooth ground repeatedly.

(2) Unwilling to change daily living habits: Children with autism often adhere to the environment, and once they change, they will be anxious. The same is true of daily habits. For example, some sick children only eat fixed food, and some are asked to sit in a fixed position when eating. Some people also like to arrange toys or things in a row. If they are messed up, they will become miserable or lose their temper. Almost all autistic children refuse to study or engage in a new activity.

(3) Ritual or compulsive behavior: such as twisting or playing with fingers in front of you, clapping your hands. Some sick children spend a lot of time memorizing weather forecasts, capitals of some countries, birthdays of family members, etc. Older children often ask the same question over and over again, and they can't help touching or smelling something. This kind of ritual or compulsive behavior is more common in children with normal intelligence.

4. Sensory and motor disorders: Sick children are numb to pain and external stimuli.

For example, sudden sounds can shock normal children, while autistic children are fine. Speaking to them, they are as slow as deaf people. Many parents go to see a doctor for the first time because they suspect that their children are "deaf". Standing in front of the sick child, the sick child doesn't seem to see it, or only pays attention to one hand or other parts of the other person. Sick children often rub, pat, kowtow, bite hard objects, shake or rotate their bodies to arouse their feelings. Sick children are particularly sensitive to certain stimuli, especially

Abnormal allergies such as whistle, vacuum cleaner sound, dog barking and sudden change of light often cause panic or irritability. Some sick children don't feel pain when their fingers are injured, but they can't stand the slight itching arranged separately. Feeling numb and allergic can coexist in a sick child. Autistic children can't sit still and keep moving. Walking on tiptoe or running instead of walking, looking around, eyes wandering, it is difficult to concentrate for a long time. I often stretch my neck, put on airs and make some strange gestures. Some sick children will laugh or cry for no reason.

5. Mental and cognitive disabilities

About 50% of autistic children's intelligence is at a moderate to severe low level (IQ is lower than 49), about 25% is at a mild low level (IQ is 50~70), and 25% can remain normal. Most of the sick children seen in the outpatient department of general hospitals are moderate to severe, mild or with normal intelligence level, and may be considered as quirks, rather than being treated as pre-morbid hospitals. Regardless of the IQ of the sick children, the main symptoms are similar, but the children with low IQ have more serious social and social reactions, rigid behavior and self-injury behavior, and seizures are more common. Rutter and Lacker1967 found that autistic children performed better in application operation, visual space skills and instant testing, but they performed poorly in the tests of symbols, abstract thinking and logical programs. Other cognitive defects are imitation, understanding of spoken language and gestures, and flexibility. Compared with non-autistic children with the same IQ, the obstacles to formulating and applying rules are much more extensive and serious. In addition, compared with autistic children with normal intelligence, the cognitive impairment of the former is more extensive. Some autistic children are called "idiot geniuses" because of their mental retardation and "loneliness", and they show special functions in music, counting dates, mechanical memory and recitation.

6. Other characteristics

Autistic children show dull emotions, or excessive or inappropriate emotions out of proportion to the situation. They often cry for no reason, crying loudly, and it is difficult to calm them down by appeasement. Others giggle for no reason. There is no fear of things that ordinary children are afraid of, such as cars, tall buildings and hairy animals. Sick children often rotate without dizziness, and self-injury behavior is more common. Seizures can occur in early childhood or adolescence, the latter is more common.

Second, the theoretical analysis of autistic children's behavior:

1. frustration attack "hypothesis:

American social psychologists JohnDollard and NeilMellor put forward the famous "frustration attack" hypothesis in their book "frustration and attack". They believe that when an individual encounters setbacks, it will always lead to some form of attack. This paper verifies the "frustration attack" hypothesis by referring to the aggressive behavior of the case owner when his wishes are not satisfied. Using this theory to explain the self-injury behavior of autistic children, we can get a reasonable explanation that "frustration leads to self-injury". The unmet wishes and needs of autistic children will lead to their aggressive behavior and self-injury behavior.

2. Unreasonable reinforcement:

Autistic children can't establish the connection of "head against the wall-pain" because of their slow cognitive development, so it is possible to express their dissatisfaction through self-injury. From this, we can draw a conclusion that the self-injury behavior of autistic children is probably just an unintentional action at first, but due to the excessive attention and intervention of parents (unreasonable reinforcement), the self-injury behavior eventually increases in frequency and severity, and develops into a self-injury behavior that harms children's physical and mental health.

3. Biological theory:

Biochemical factors: Children with autism may have increased dopamine and 5- hydroxytryptamine, increased adrenaline and norepinephrine in plasma, and abnormal neurotransmitters such as opioids, but there is no specificity. Abnormal migration of cerebellar nerve cells was found in brain tissue, and the number of Purkinje cells decreased. Another study reported that autism may be related to the limbic system, amygdala and hippocampus. Some studies also believe that autism is related to the rapid growth of the brain in the first year after birth.

4. The theory of "cold storage mother":

B Bert Heim (1956, 1967) advocated the psychological theory of autism and put forward the theory of "refrigerator mother". He believes that autism is the result of children living in an environment full of threats and lacking maternal love. This theory has dealt a double blow to the parents of autistic children, leaving them in guilt and anxiety.

5. Theory of mind:

The theory in "Mind Learning" refers not to a systematic and conscious theory, but to the natural cognitive mechanism of psychological state. The "theory of mind" of autism advocates that autistic children lack thinking ability, which leads to special obstacles in some interpersonal relationships, communication and imagination. Explain the three kinds of injuries of autistic children, and explain some behavioral characteristics of autism, such as limited interest, rigidity and repetition. The most typical example is Baron-Cohen( 1985) and others' research on "Sally-Anna" false belief task. About 80% of autistic subjects failed in this task, while most normal children and children with Down syndrome were able to pass this task. Even those autistic subjects who can pass this task show obvious damage in more complicated false belief understanding tests. Leslie and Frith repeated the false belief task test and added the correct belief understanding test for autistic children. The results show that in the false belief task, children with specific language barriers in the control group can pass the experimental task, and the passing rate is only 28% compared with children with high-functioning autism. In the subsequent study, Pena and others used the improved "candy box" task and got similar results. These experiments make people form the view that their development of theory of mind is seriously damaged compared with their own intellectual function or intellectual age. Happé' s meta-analysis of previous studies strongly supports this view. By measuring the age of speech intelligence of autistic children or mentally retarded children, she confirmed that the possibility of completing the standard theory of mind task has a great relationship with their development level. Of course, for autistic children, the level of intelligence required for this task is significantly higher than that of children in the control group.

6. Executive dysfunction theory

Executive function was once defined as "the ability to maintain an appropriate problem-solving state in order to achieve a certain goal in the future". Subsequently, researchers further concretized this cognitive ability, thinking that the executive function mainly includes: planning, flexibility of thinking and behavior, stereotype transfer, inhibition, keeping a psychological representation "online" or storing it in working memory. The realization of these functions must depend on the complete frontal lobe function. Autistic children have executive dysfunction, and there are two main evidences: first, autistic patients also show poor executive ability in the index execution problem test used by patients with anterior injuries, and behavioral characteristics of autistic patients such as stubbornness and repetition also appear in patients with forehead injuries; Second, many direct studies on executive control show that there may be some problems in the preponderant response of autistic patients to external stimuli. For example, autistic children show poor planning in Hanoi tower problem and circuitous acquisition task, and need to suppress pre-dominance response. The damage of self-control behavior may be the best explanation for the repetitive rigid behavior of autistic patients. Because the self-control of autistic children is impaired, they can't effectively control the occurrence of behaviors like normal people, which leads to the repetition of some behaviors.

7. weak center synthesis theory

This theory is put forward to explain the "strengths" of autistic people rather than their injuries. These "strengths" include: some autistic people have very high IQ scores, and they have achieved relatively good results in some constructive tests of visual space or Wexler scale, such as building block patterns and object splicing. Fries and Harpy believe that these peak abilities reflect the weak driving force of central integration in autistic patients. They define central integration as the normal trend of integrating some information when looking for the whole meaning, that is, the trend of paying attention to the whole rather than the part of any stimulus. They believe that, on the other hand, people with autism are more likely to pay attention to the local level than the overall level. There is a lot of evidence that the driving force of central integration of autistic patients is relatively weak: first, autistic patients show faster speed in mosaic test than matched control group. Shan & Fries proved that autistic people can build standard building blocks faster than the matched control group, but if the complete building block is divided into its components,

Parts, the speed of children in the control group is accelerated, which shows that in the standard task, autistic children pay attention to parts rather than the whole before assembling the divided building blocks; Secondly, there is a phenomenon among autistic patients that they fail to use unambiguous homophones in the surrounding word context, which reflects that the central integration drive of autistic patients is very weak. In addition, there is a tendency that autistic children can't list typical patterns in counting and can't perceive optical illusions, which proves that the driving force of central integration is weak.