Autism Spectrum Disorders

At least, the number of cases of reported autism has merely doubled within the last one decade. It is therefore important that the cause of ASD be established to aid in giving way to possible solutions. Making the process successful would at least mean considering the previous research about the disorder then try to establish new knowledge to curb the phenomenon. Perhaps, this would be a perfect way of creating possible treatments and as well provide information to people who have no information about autism. This research paper seeks to provide an insightful and integrative literature review on ASD based on the four domains of psychology. Other groups that have shown increased interest in the study of ASD include the parents, educational providers and general researchers as the issue affects all these groups.

Unlike the fact that more cases of ASD are getting reported from diagnosis would mean that something new has happened that was not the case in the past few years. One fact that cannot be disregarded is the fact that the health professionals in the modern years have more knowledge about the case and therefore have given the issue more consideration. Earlier, children would just be diagnosed of the ADHD then later be diagnosed with ASD (Berkan et al. With the recent technology and growing knowledge in ASD, the field has received a more elaborate and efficient diagnosis. Since the discovery of ASD, this body of knowledge has increasingly grown from early publications to a broad field including several articles cited in this research paper.

In addition to the growing knowledge of literature, several critiques on the theories of ASD have been developed. This seeks to offer a broadened view of the spectrum with the hope of creating a lead to the control of ASD. This research paper will be based on 24 articles all referenced at the end of the paper. The articles are based on the 4 different psychological domains. As a result, the paper will engage in a comprehensive analysis of 24 articles selected from among the most reliable sources that are peer-reviewed by scholars concerning ASD. The selection of the articles is in line with the four domains of psychology so as to create a balance while to trying to close the gaps that have been left out by earlier research.

Although a rich literature on ASD has existed since its discovery in the 1940s, a lot remains to be unknown up to date. This can be explained by the upcoming literature especially in the diagnosis of ASD. The intended new knowledge from this research will seek to enrich the existing literature and as well as benefit medical professionals concerned with ASD and any other persons of interest. Interaction of psychology domains Basically, psychology has 5 domains; social personality, cognitive, biological, developmental and finally mental and physical health. Each domain, in this case, is responsible for some role. Starting with the social personality, this domain is concerned about emotion, personality, social life, and motivation. Proceeding with the cognitive domain, it is concerned with memory, perception, intelligence, and thinking.

Thirdly, the biological domain is concerned with sensations, consciousness and the aspects of neuroscience and biopsychology. Theories guiding respective psychological domains Each of the four domains relies on specific theories. However, under the case of ASD, this paper will highlight several theories that guide each respective psychological domain. To start with, the cognitive domain relies on several theories but mainly the theory of emphasizing-systemizing, the theory of mind, the theory of week central coherence and the theory of executive dysfunction. The social personality domain majorly relies on the social motivation theory in the case of ASD. On the other hand, the developmental domain commonly relies on the extreme male brain theory and the mind-blindness theory. Precise look at the contents of the articles show sound literature and that has been published as peer-reviewed articles.

All the articles have demonstrated effective research from earlier sources and as a result, have outlined a good flow of information in their research. The sampling procedures, methodologies especially for the participants are quite representative in all the 24 articles. Procedures used in obtaining information across the articles nearly matches and hence suggests a more similar information gathered across the domains. Most importantly is the way that the articles have displayed the results and findings. The majority have suggested that the increasing levels of reported cases of autism could be as a result of upcoming new diagnostic methods used by medical professionals. The authors have agreed in that much earlier of the autism cases remained unrevealed. Additionally, they have suggested that the condition has different levels from mild to extreme and the outcomes remain proportional to these levels.

On the idea of intervention outcomes, the different authors have agreed that common results are changes in intelligence and improvement on adaptive behavior. This idea has been advanced by Lord, & Jones, in the article “New strategies and findings for behavioral interventions in autism spectrum disorders” who have argued that behavioral treatment is the most empirical treatment that can be given to autistic people and its outcomes will be improved intelligence and adaptive behavior (Lord, & Jones, 2013). Though slightly different, the condition could as well be caused by the aggressive nature of autistic people. There is a common ground in the articles in that they have all skewed towards psychological theories that surround the human mind in explaining the idea of autism. Majorly, the authors have done a great effort in explaining the link between the human mind and autism.

This has pulled their ideas closer to these theories that sorrowing human mind since it is at the core of development and learning. Basically, the mind controls all activities of the body and is the major part affected in the case of autism. In the case where representative samples are needed, responsible researchers must ascertain that the samples they employ to draw conclusions on effectively represent the populations. On a different note, the human body functions as a whole but is entirely controlled by the mind. For that reason, it is inefficient to discuss a single part of the body on its own without considering the other parts. As a result, the authors of the reviewed articles have been confined to theories that explain the body and its functioning as a whole then linking it to autism.

Therefore, to effectively cover the concept of autism, the human mind has just been taken as the central organ but cannot be addressed without considering the body since it controls everything including all that is affected by autism. Within the four domains, the study of ASD has primarily discussed as a normal happening. The condition is, however, an alarming case that dearly needs attention. From the writings of Olliac et al. , 2017, the majority of researchers and scholars have only emphasized the study of ASD in young children as they progress but have done little to involve infants. According to Kikuchi et al. To start with nearly all researchers have agreed to the fact that social communication deficits are an indication of ASD.

This is regardless of the different studies and diagnosis employed for the disorder. However, these researchers have not managed to explain the concepts of speech disfluency. Once scholars manage to categorize the concept, it would be possible to; (1) effectively undertake cross studies on children showing social communication problems as an indication of ASD and (2) explain the difference between speech disfluencies on ASD and typically growing children (MacFarlane et al. This would make it easy to explain how social communication problem arises from ASD rather than just stating social communication as a symptom. Though evidence has proven that more people are continuously being diagnosed with the disorder in the past decade, there is a possibility that the disorder has not increased but rather its diagnostic methods.

If medical professionals have diversified the diagnostic methods, it becomes possible to notice cases that had not been noticed earlier. As a result, what would have changed is an increase in diagnostic methods and not in the cases of autism. Logically, this means that areas with better health care facilities for autism such as California in the U. S. The research outcomes of this paper are based on the selection of articles that have clearly followed the ethical issues specified under the APA ethical standards. Therefore, the findings used to detail this literature review have clearly been influenced by the ethical codes of integrity, competency, professionalism, dignity, and respect for participants of the research and finally social responsibility. The findings used are from informed groups studied and researched following the ethical code.

Finally, the articles used to give findings for the review have been keenly selected across diverse groups considering the world demographics. However, the applied ethical considerations were fair with others overlapping across the domains. This argument by Yan proposed for the use of animated vehicles that have real emotional faces to promote emotional recognition. When interventions are availed at the early stages, better results can be achieved. An example is the ASD adults who show a mismatch of communication cues either verbal or nonverbal. According to Nuber et al. , (2018), the perception of irony in adults is an indication of ASD. Other cases that also need to be considered are the affected groups from ASD including caregivers and parents taking care of such children.

It has been evident across literature that these parents suffer a great deal of stress. As argued by Manan et al. , (2018), “there exists a significant difference in the levels of stress suffered by parents taking care of young children with ASD compared to those taking care of older adults”. The level of stress is higher in the event of a young autistic child compared to when suffered by an adult. , (2016) has proven that there is a difference in the prevalence of autism across nations. As a result, the study has proposed for the application of ABA-Based interventions stating it is among the most effective. The difference in prevalence calls for more research and training to let people in different areas get sufficient information about the disorder.

A different research by Bedford et al. , (2017) shows that although there are no early markers that can be linked with ASD at the age of 3 years, many diagnostic changes are likely to occur as a child progresses past toddlerhood to mid-childhood. My new perspective based on evidence-based practice would be embracing the ASD condition. Rather than trying efforts to bring children from ASD condition to the normal function through therapies and other means, children with ASD can be left to explore their capabilities. The signs of repetitive behavior for children with ASD could be a step towards perfecting some personal skills. In addition, some people have the ability to perform better in given tasks when left alone. This gives a supporting reason as to why the antisocial nature of autistic children should not be taken negatively.

The causes of autism have not been clearly discovered even after many years of research. As a result, some people still believe it to be a cultural phenomenon although there is existing scientific evidence linking autism and genetics. At this point in time, the most important thing is devoting more efforts to research aimed at finding a solution for the disorder since it is affecting so many children nowadays. It is important that people turn their focus to the ASDs. In this case, several things that can contribute towards ending the condition can be realized. , Pickles, A. , Charman, T. , & Johnson, M. H. Neurocognitive and observational markers: prediction of autism spectrum disorder from infancy to mid-childhood.  American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 116(5), 331- 343.

Chezan, L. C. , Gable, R. A. Feng, S. , Wang, X. , Wang, Q. , Fang, J. , Wu, Y. , & Kaneko, K. Spatiotemporal characteristics of gaze of children with autism spectrum disorders while looking at classroom scenes.  PloS one, 12(5), e0175912. Hill, E. , Berthoz, S. , Ainsleigh, S. , & Bhuptani, N. An overview of autism and applied behavior analysis in the Gulf cooperation Council in the Middle East.  Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 3(2), 154-164. Kikuchi, M. M. New strategies and findings for behavioral interventions in autism spectrum disorders.  Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1304(1), 70-76. MacFarlane, H. , Gorman, K. A. , Amit, N. , Said, Z. , & Ahmad, M. The Influences of Parenting Stress, Children Behavioral Problems and Children Quality of Life on Depression Symptoms Among Parents of Children with Autism: Preliminary Findings.

, & Vernon, T. Ethical considerations in the application of the scientist–practitioner model for psychologists conducting intervention research.  Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 46(2), 79-87. Nuber, S. , Jacob, H. C. I. , Sarradet, J. L. , Bauby, C. , & Frye, R. E. Mitochondrial dysfunction in the gastrointestinal mucosa of children with autism: A blinded case-control study.  PloS one, 12(10), e0186377. Schoorl, J. Effect of familiarity on reward anticipation in children with and without autism spectrum disorders.  PloS one, 9(9), e106667. Wallace, G. L. , Silvers, J. , Mathée, J. , & Bolt, D. Executive function skills in school-age children with autism spectrum disorder: Association with language abilities.  Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61(11), 2641-2658. Yan, Y. Reduced structural complexity of the right cerebellar cortex in male children with autism spectrum disorder.