According to a new research at the Brigham University, children suffering with autism are not capable of letting go of their deep fears, leading to severity of the illness.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder which appears during childhood resulting in social interactions, repetitive behavior and communication problems. The research was able to find a link between rigid fearfulness which causes severity of classic symptoms of autism like repeated movements. The study urges parents to take special care of children with autism while dealing with fears.
"People with autism likely don't experience or understand their world in the same way we do," said Mikle South, a psychology professor at BYU and lead author of the study, according to Science World Report. "Since they can't change the rules in their brain, and often don't know what to expect from their environment, we need to help them plan ahead for what to expect."
The research was carried out by South and two of his students of neuroscience Tiffani Newton and Paul Chamberlain. The study included 30 children with the disorder and 29 children without it. South and his students noticed a harmless but a surprising puff of air under the chins of the participants when showed a yellow cue card. The researchers measured skin responses related with different colors to see if any change in their nervous system occurred.
"Typical kids learn quickly to anticipate based on the new color instead of the old one," South said. "It takes a lot longer for children with autism to learn to make the change."
With the observations done by the researchers, it was learned that the time taken to switch the original fear was linked with the severity of classic symptoms of autism.
"We see a strong connection between anxiety and the repetitive behaviors," South told the Science World Report. "We're linking symptoms used to diagnose autism with emotion difficulties not usually considered as a classic symptom of autism."
"In talking to parents, we hear that living with classic symptoms of autism is one thing, but dealing with their children's worries all the time is the greater challenge," South said. "It may not be an entirely separate direction to study their anxiety because it now appears to be related."
