The symptoms of children with ASD were similar to the symptoms of those who had experienced the German concentration camps in World War II. Because of this, the parents of autistic children often experienced blame and guilt. Thankfully, that view is no longer held, and most researchers and mental health professionals understand that ASD has biological origins (Carlson, 2007, p. 596-597).
Neurophysiological Features and Cognitive/Behavioral Symptoms.
There are several abnormalities in the brain activity of an autistic individual. In an experiment by Castelli, Frith, HappeĢ, & Frith (2002), autistic and non-autistic individuals were asked to infer human-like motivations and reasoning on two triangles that interacted with each other in a video. These researchers performed functional imaging on the participants during the task, and saw marked differences between the two groups. For example, there was less activation in the superior temporal sulcus and medial pre-frontal cortex of autistic individuals than in the non-autistic individuals. In particular, the temporo-parietal junction of the superior temporal sulcus, which processes biological motion and mentalizing, had little to no functioning in the ASD participants. This lack of mental activity in autistic individuals, says Castelli (2002), implies that there is a disconnect between high- and low-order perceptual processes.
Several other areas of the brain are affected by autism. Research in 2001 by Pierce et al. (as cited in Carlson, 2007, p. 595) found little to no activity in the fusiform face area (FFA) of the fusiform gyrus of autistic adults looking at pictures of human faces. Non-autistic adults, however, had their largest increase in brain activity in the FFA while looking at pictures of faces. Further research (Grelotti et al., 2005) has concluded that decreased brain activity in the FFA of autistic individuals is likely from a disinterest in human faces rather than a dysfunction of the FFA.
