This is a paper I wrote for my Human Development class, which I got an A on. :) I thought the information was really interesting.
To answer the question of how
the brain structure of someone with an Autism Spectrum Disorder is different
than a typically developing brain, I looked at three articles. Each article had a different study conducted
to see the differences between people with (ASD) and typically developing (TD)
people.
The first article starts out by explaining what Autism
Spectrum Disorders are and how they still have little understanding about how
people who have ASD are affected by their brain structure differences. The article then goes on to explain patterns
of brain overgrowth in children, then moves on to a study between patients with
ASD and patients without. The rest of
the article focuses on a part of the brain and goes into detail about each
structure and their differences between people with ASD and without.
The second article focuses solely on the difference of
the Corpus Callosum in younger kids who have ASD and compares them to typically
developing kids from age 3-4. They studied the differences by having MRI’s done
on all of the children. Statistical
analysis was then done, to form the results of the study.
The final article was about a study that was done with
adults with ASD and ones without to see if there was a link between the sex you
are and diagnosis of Autism.
Autism
Spectrum Disorders are developmental disorders characterized by severe
impairment in social interaction, reduced and impaired communication, and
restricted patterns of behavior. (Article 1). Approximately 1 in 68 children
are diagnosed with autism, out of these 4 out of 5 are boys. (Papalla, 113).
During last summer I worked at a camp for kids with disabilities, and out of
all the kids I worked with, only 25% of my group were girls. I wanted to do the paper on this topic,
because I am hoping to get a Bachelors in Special Education. In this field, I will experience many kids
with an autism spectrum disorder. I also
wanted to do my paper on this topic because I’m currently a part of a campaign
called the Canaan Project. The Canaan
Project was started after one of the people in my church had his daughter die
after being diagnosed as medically complex.
The Canaan Project was put in place to put forth the idea of human
equality, that no person is better than the next if they have special needs or
not. Through this project they also made
a documentary following five families with kids with special needs, and are starting
a foundation for kids for special needs as well. Children with ASD do indeed
have different brains from TD children from their brain-size, structure, and
even genes.
In
early childhood, children with ASD have an overgrowth in their brains in
circumference and in volume, followed by slower growth in other areas of their
brain. (Article 1) The brain starts out normal-sized, but then starts its
abnormal growth after age 1-2. (Article
1). The abnormalities in growth of the brain occur in the temporal lobe,
frontal lobe, amygdala, and in 50% of cases the occipital lobe. (Article 1). In the 50% of cases that do have overgrowth
in the occipital lobe it is very little. (Article 1). While these parts of the
brain are bigger than normal the Corpus Callosum is actually reported as being
smaller in kids with ASD. (Article 2) As we learned in class, all areas of the
brain are rapidly growing in infancy. (Dr.Henrie). Because our brains are
rapidly growing in infancy, if you don’t learn to do a certain task by a
certain age you lose that skill. (Dr.Henrie). In infancy children with autism
are delayed by 9 months in babbling, and use none or few communicative
gestures. (Papalla, 113). Babbling is important for an infant to exercise using
their vocal cords. (Dr.Henrie). The frontal lobe which is one of the areas of
the brain that experiences an abnormality in growth, is the part of the brain
that deals with decision-making, personality, episodic memory, and the
regulation of emotions. (Dr. Henrie). The Corpus Callosum is the part of the
brain that connects the right and left hemisphere together. (Dr.Henrie). A
decrease in the size of the Corpus Callosum, could be the cause of why the
other brain structures are larger than usual, due to the brain’s plasticity.
(Article 2). A smaller Corpus Callosum
could also contain an increased number of neurons with fewer inter-hemispheric
connections. (Article 2). We also
learned in class that the Corpus Callosum processes information in adolescence,
and also the amygdala deals with emotions. (Dr. Henrie). The undergrowth of the
Corpus Callosum, and the overgrowth of the amygdala could affect these
processes. We learned in class that in adolescence we are affected by the fact
our prefrontal cortex is not yet mature. (Dr. Henrie). The prefrontal cortex of
the brain deals with decision-making, when it isn’t fully developed we make
impulse decisions instead of thinking things through. (Dr. Henrie). The prefrontal cortex doesn’t reach maturity
until age 25. (Dr.Henrie). In the textbook it says that the amygdala of people
with Autism actually have less neurons then people without it. It also talks about how people with autism
show deficit in theory of mind. (Papalia, 113). Theory of Mind as we learned in
class is being able to have two opposing thoughts at once, it is also important
to understand a child’s behavior. (Dr. Henrie). Without Theory of Mind people will tend to
be more deceptive, less empathetic, and not be able to tell between which
things were dreams, and which were reality. (Dr.Henrie). This was also evident
when working with kids with autism, if other children told on them they would
use deception to try and get out of situations.
It was
found when studying the white matter in the brain of adults with autism and
ones without, that the males without autism had a total white matter volume.
(Article 3). This was absent in the participants that had autism. (Article
3). Autism being more likely in men is
attributed to the male’s larger brain size, and a man’s natural strength in
systematizing. (Papalla, 113). Because of these factors the autistic brain is
known as an extreme version of the male brain. (Papalla, 113).
Genetics
is also linked to why people obtain autism, such as duplication, and deletion
on a gene on chromosome 16, which accounts for a small number of cases.
(Papalla, 113). High-levels of fetal testosterone in utero may lead to the
difficulties in social interaction, which is a key feature seen in people with
autism.
In
class we learned about how parents are scared to vaccinate their kids because
they think that doing so will cause their children to obtain autism.
(Dr.Henrie). As you said in class there is no evidence of this, and people are
better off vaccinating their kids than not. (Dr.Henrie). Multiple vaccines
working together actually make your immune system stronger against bacteria and
viruses. (Papalla,105).
Although
there is no cure currently for autism improvement can occur if early
interventions take place. Interventions
to help the child develop independence, responsibility, social interaction
training, and social skills will help a child with autism immensely. I definitely look forward to working with
kids with disabilities again this summer, and will look out for the behaviors I
found out through doing research and taking Human Development this semester.
