Social deficits are the main issue for the children with ASD. They interact much less than the non-autistic children. From early childhood they might focus exclusively on one thing and ignore the interaction attempts of the people surrounding them.
Autistic children often don’t recognize their names and might have the tendency to avoid eye contact. Empathy is usually absent, and they lack the ability to understand other people’s feelings or thoughts. They usually don’t notice mimics and gestures, so they have difficulties in recognizing emotions.
Stereotypes and repetitive behaviour are common characteristics of this disease.
People with autism are often seen rocking, twirling, biting, or performing self abuse actions. In some cases they do not use their names, but use the pronoun I or me instead. There are also delays in the speech development.
Some children speak about specific subjects they are interested in, without connection to the topic the persons around are talking about.
Most of the children with ASD are not interested in playing with other children.
Epilepsy is quite common in people with autism, about 20-30% develop this disease before they become adults.
Other conditions that can affect them are learning difficulties, Tourette syndrome, attention deficit disorder, mental retardation, tuberous sclerosis.