DSM-5: AUTISM

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The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Addition (DSM-5) identifies countless numbers of mental disorders, such as Autism (“American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 Development”). According to a study conducted in 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network revealed that the prevalence of Autism within the United States is “approximately 1 in 68 children” (“Prevalence”). This statistic reveals increasing frequency of the disorder, as the prevalence only two years prior was 1 in 88, and thirty years prior showed the disorder present in 1 in 10,000 (“Prevalence”). With such increasing rates of pervasiveness, it is in the populations’ best interest to familiarize themselves with this disorder.
Autism can be diagnosed according to symptoms which can vary widely in severity. Most cases can be identified by the ages of 6-18 months of age, with noticeable disturbances in areas such as development rates and sequence of motor, social, and cognitive skills. Most symptoms are prevalent by the age of three years old, such as semantic and pragmatic delays, (if the child is even speaking), apparent repetitive actions, toe walking, and dissociation to the outside world. Pragmatic issues would regard basic social manners, such as taking turns, reciprocating interaction, etc. Semantic problems are in regards to misunderstood or misuse of vocabulary in which the child is executing a false meaning of the word they are using with the intentions of them being correct. Some examples would be a child of 6-18 months of age not responding to other people, or fixating on objects, and older toddlers not responding to their names, avoiding eye contact, or unusual pl...

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...ded called Social Communication Disorder, which allows for the “diagnosis of disabilities in social communication without the presence of repetitive behavior” (“DSM-5 Released: The Big Changes- World of Psychology”).

Works Cited

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