What are the symptoms of autism?

The signs and symptoms of autism tend to appear in infancy, but sometimes they appear later, especially in girls.

Last week, we explored the different risk factors that can contribute to autism, highlighting that there is no definitive cause.

In the same way that every person with autism has different risk factors, the way that autism presents itself varies from person to person.

People with autism tend to have heightened senses. This sometimes makes their reactions to certain stimuli seem overly dramatic to people without autism.

They also might have a strong sense of routine, causing them to become quite distressed if this routine is compromised.

Other symptoms of autism include hand-flapping, monotonous speech and expressions, delayed learning of speech and poor eye contact.

Felicity Thompson