world not ours, and it has been suggested that autism is the source of stories about children who are fairy changelings (Harrison, 1996).There are many questions as to what exactly causes autism. Prospective studies of young children (18-24 months) have highlighted the importance of social-communicative functions as early predictors of a later, more reliable diagnosis of autism (Baron-Cohen et al., 1996, as cited in Tustin, 1993), The absence of typically developing, pre-linguistic functions such as showing objects, joint affection, affective exchanges, pretend play and imitation have been successfully cited as markers of autism in young children and these are thought to be precursors of later appearing deficits in social relatedness and communication. However, the predictive validity of these behaviors appears questionable prior to about eighteen months of age. Perhaps some of these indicators may need to be considered (Tustin, 1993). Loeshe (1990) suggested that abnormal perceptual responses as well as social deficits may be likely indicators of autism during infancy. Although social cognition and communicative functions have been investigated widely, there is a lack of empirical information about the various qualitative aspects of sensory-motor behaviors that may be disrupted early in the development of children with autism. These types of difficulties are reported extensively in older children with autism as well as in retrospective accounts of the infancy period based on medical chart reviews and/or parental reports. An empirical study of sensory-motor functions early in the development of autism could reveal potential markers of autism that, while subtle, may prove foundations to later evolving symptoms either within or outside of the sensory-motor domain. Sensory-motor processes are salient from birth and thus may be easily observable throughout infancy-prior to the development of abnormalities in many of the higher l...
