Causes of Autism

Since autism was first added to the psychiatric literature 50 years ago, there have been numerous studies and theories about the cause. The researchers still have not reached an agreement on the specific cause of his. First, it must be known that autism is a set of wide variety of symptoms and may have many causes. This concept is prevalent in the medical world.

For example, a set of symptoms that we perceive as "cool" can be caused by hundreds of different viruses, bacteria and even our own immune system. Autism is a disorder no doubt with a biological basis. In the past, some researchers say that autism is due to poor skills in the mother's affection. This belief has caused a lot of pain and unnecessary guilt in parents of children with autism, when in fact the inability of the individual with autism to interact with both is a key symptom of this developmental disorder.

Support the biological theory of autism, some neurological disorders that have been known to be associated with autism picture. Autism is one of the symptoms of these disorders. These conditions include tuberous sclerosis (a disorder descent), fragile X syndrome, cerebral dysgenesis (abnormal development of the brain), Rett syndrome, and some inborn errors of metabolism (biochemical defect). Autism, seems to be a end result of the "final common pathway" of many disorders that affect brain development. However, generally, when the clinician make the diagnosis of autism, they put out the causes which have known of autistic behavior as a consideration. However, if knowledge of the conditions that cause autism progress, the more and the less the case that will be considered as "pure" and more autistic individuals with autism will be identified for some reason.

There is a close relationship between autism and seizures. This relationship works in two ways: first many patients (20-30%) with autism have seizures. Second, patients with seizures, which may be due to other causes, may have behaviors such as autism. One specific and often misunderstood relationship between autism and seizures are Landau-Kleffner Syndrome. This syndrome is also known as acquired epileptic aphasia. Some children with epilepsy experience a sudden loss of language skills especially receptive language (ability to understand). Many also often experience symptoms of autism.

These children are often, but not always, have a distinctive pattern of brain electrical activity seen in EEG (electroencephalogram) during deep sleep called electrographic status epilepticus during sleep (ESES). Usually the loss or decline in the age of the emergence of language skills is about 4 years old, which makes Landau-Kleffner syndrome be distinguished from autism in this case, the autism usually first appear in younger children. However, in recent years, some children (very very few) that did not show any seizure that can be observed are known to have Landau-Kleffner syndrome.

Other therapies ranging from common anticonvulsant drug therapy to surgical therapy have been proposed and tested in Landau-Kleffner syndrome. Difficult to evaluate the true effects of therapy for Landau-Kleffner syndrome due to the high rate of spontaneous resolution.