is a spectrum disorder, meaning that symptoms and characteristics of the disorder can present themselves in a variety of ways, from mild to severe. Usually children with autism have deficiencies in both verbal and non-verbal communication. Lastly, behavior is greatly affected by autism. They may be overactive or very passive and throw frequent tantrums, injuring themselves, for no apparent reason other than to gather attention. They often lack common sense and show aggressive or violent behavior. While some people only show one or two symptoms, others have all or nearly all and find it extremely difficult to function in society. People with autism do live normal life spans and the behaviors associated may change or disappear over time. During the stages of infancy, the autistic baby seems normal. Then, a period of time before the age of three, the child experiences regression. In some cases, the first signs are at the age of three. There is no exact determination of when the signs appear. When autistic parents were told to think back in time before the third year, some parents said that they could not pinpoint exactly what the difference was, but they described a vague feeling that something was wrong from infancy (Paluszny). In normal development of children, paluszny says, one of the first milestones is the social smile. Babies smile and respond to the faces and voices of adults. The autistic infant does not bring about a social smile; rather the child will only respond to sounds and sights that are not from the adult. Also, a normal baby will explore the mothers face by touch or poking fingers in parts of her face, but an autistic child will rarely look at the mother and shows no interest in exploring her features. The next stage of development would be sounds from the baby. Paluszny says, the second important milestone in the development of the baby is vocational. Around the third month, a baby will make sounds,...
