Autism in Children

1. Autism
Autism is a fatal disease which makes no mark on the outward physical appearance of a child
who looks normal but when someone tries to talk to the child he usually avoids eye contact, if
insisted he starts rocking his whole body and yells sentences which have little or no meaning.
Autism comes from 'autis' a Greek word meaning 'self' which squarely fits the features of this
disease. Children suffering from Autism have no empathy for others, absolutely withdrawn from
their surroundings yet they feel normal emotions like pleasure, fear and rage. Till now scientists
have just come to know that this disease is usually inherited.
After 1990's a new discovery of nerve cells were made and these brain cells are called mirror
neurons. These cells are involved in abilities such as empathy so it is perceived that any
dysfunction of these mirror cells could also be the cause of autism.
Symptoms
Losses of empathy, difficulty in speaking, reduced imitation among others are also the symptoms
that show that mirror neurons were dysfunctional. Due to different nature of symptoms theorists
have proposed to divide autism into two groups, anatomical and psychological. Besides
abnormalities of the cerebellum which coordinates highly complex voluntary muscle movements

2. is also a cause. There is another theory called ‘theory of other minds' but it is not a viable theory
as it does not be carried far beyond restarting autism symptoms.
Human brain’s frontal lobe helps control voluntary movements. Brain imaging techniques
revealed that the human cortex also contain mirror neurons they send commands and are
involved in sending commands to simulate imitation it is the reason that when a baby is shown
tongue, the infant tries to imitate the same.
Mu Waves suppression
EEG of a child revealed that it has a visible mu wave which looked suppressed as he made some
movement but once this child looked at some other fellow perfrom the same action this
suppression did not occur. This proves that the child has an intact motor command system, but
the deficiency lies in the mirror neurons.More than 60 years ago German-American psychologist
Wolfgang Köhler discovered through his famous bouba/kiki effect abstract properties of shapes
and sound can be fathomed by the brain. The angular gyrus, lying in brain, is responsible for
hearing and feeling of touch.
Can the mirror neurons be repaired?
Mirror neurons deficiency in autism patients can be used as a diagnostic tool in identifying
children with autism in their early infancy and hence apply this knowledge with the help of
available therapies. Doctors could also monitor mu waves of a child with autism. If MDMA or

3. ecstasy can foster emotional closeness then based on the formulation modifications can be made
to the compound to develop safe treatment to alleviate some symptoms of autism.William
Hirstein of Elmhurst College and Portia Iversen of Cure Autism have developed what the
salience landscape theory. When human brain is overwhelmed with different information these
are then processed by the brain's sensory area and relayed to amygdala which determines how to
respond to these information. Amygdala creates a salience landscape which reveals the
significance of everything in the patient’s environs. But in autism children this landscape is
distorted, so a child with autism is unable to focus on something like normal kids.
One of the reasons for distorted salience landscape is that autism children have had temporal
lobe epilepsy anytime during their infancy. The reason for such epilepsy during infancy is both
genetic and environmental.There is a possibility that for describing autism’s two symptoms, the
mirror neuron dysfunction and distorted salience landscape.The distorted links between limbic
system and brain might be responsible for damaging the mirror neurons. But further experiments
are required to put these conjectures into test.
Critique
This paper is a critique of a research paper written by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Lindsay
M. Oberman (2008) titled: Broken Mirror, A theory of autism-studies of the mirror neuron
system to help scientists to develop and apply therapies to treat autism. The authors have done a
research study to examine the results of autism on children behaviors.

4. Problem
This research is an experimental study designed to assess the cause as well as the effectiveness of
the treatment of autism in children. The problem is clearly stated and is researchable and its
major significance is stated in the study. The problem statement includes the variables and
recommends a positive correlation between Mu Waves suppression or broken neurons and
distorted salience landscape.
Review of Literature
Autism is a fatal disease it makes no mark on the outward physical appearance of a child but
when someone tries to talk to the child he usually avoids eye contact, utters sentences which are
not easily comprehensible and rocks his body. Children suffering from Autism have no empathy
for others but they feel normal emotions like pleasure fear and rage. Till now scientists have just
come to know that this disease is usually inherited. The authors cite previous research, to justify
the contents of their research. Some nerve cells in the brain are called mirror neurons which are
involved in abilities such as empathy so it is perceived that any dysfunction of these mirror cells
could also be the cause of autism. Human brain is able to extract abstract properties from shapes
and sounds. When human brain is overwhelmed with different information these are then
processed by the brain's sensory area and relayed to amygdala which determines how to respond
to these information and creates a salience. But in case of autism patients this salience landscape
is distorted this can be due to temporal lobe epilepsy in infancy. Although the two symptoms of

5. autism, mirror neuron dysfunction and distorted salience landscape do not contradict each other,
but more research is needed to prove this.
Conclusion
The results are presented clearly and specifically address each question. But every hypothesis
was not tested. Appropriate descriptive statistics are presented and described in the text. The
authors set and specify the probability value before addressing the results of the study. The
authors recommend future research based on their statistical as well as practical findings. Much
has to be done to understand autism, modern science with all its might and power still looks
perplexed in this context and this has also been accepted by the authors.