The Alarming Increase of Children Diagnosed with Autism - Essay ExampleWhat is autism?Recognized a half century ago (Hanchette), Autism is a developmental disorder that has been deemed very severe and begins anytime between the birth of the child and 2 ½ years of age. These children are normal in appearance, but they will engage in various disturbing behaviors that are obviously different than the behaviors of normal children. There are also varying degrees of autism. Those who have less severe cases may be diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) or Asperger’s Syndrome in which the child may have normal speech, but display some social and behavioral problems that are associated with autism (unknown, autism.com/autism). But believe it or not, it was once believed that autism was to be accepted as is because it was thought that nothing could be done about it. But now there have been a variety of treatment methods developed which have proven to be very helpful in leading to great improvement.
