Lay Abstracts

TL;DR: Autism is a coherent syndrome in which principal features of the disorder stand in intimate developmental relation with each other.

Abstract: Lay abstract: There is a growing body of opinion that the syndrome of autism can be separated into subsets of clinical features that only sometimes occur together. Often affected individuals’ restricted social engagement is accompanied by atypical patterns of communication and stereotyped activities, but this is not always the case. Different genetic predispositions might apply to different parts of the clinical picture. Moreover, each subset of atypicalities might need explanation in terms of its own, distinctive psychological theory. The present paper offers a critique of this position. It argues for the alternative view, that autism is a coherent syndrome in which principal features of the disorder stand in intimate developmental relation with each other. Although we shall need different levels of explanation if we are to understand autism, this does not mean we should abandon integrative theories. One such theoretical approach acknowledges diverse causes of autism, but posits that the syndrome develops through a final common pathway involving disruption in engagements between affected individuals and other people. This disruption interferes with a developing child’s experience of a world that is shared with others. Studies of congenitally blind children offer support for this view of autism, and suggest that a source of coherence in the syndrome is restriction in certain forms of perceptually dependent social experience.