100 questions and answers丨What is retrogressive autism?

Compared with congenital autistic children, some children are born no different, they talk like normal children, communicate with people like normal children, like normal children like to snuggle in the arms of their parents, but one day, they suddenly no longer like to talk, become silent, and then slowly lose the ability to speak.

Clinically, this phenomenon is called retrogressive autism.

Some people may feel puzzled, autism is not a congenital disease, how can there be normal children with this disease the day after tomorrow?

But it is very helpless, there is indeed such a thing in life.

Autism is divided into two categories: non-retrogressive and retrogressive from the form of onset.

Non-retrogressive autism: from birth onwards, a degree of delay and deviation from the developmental indicators of ordinary children begins gradually.

Retrogressive autism: In early birth and development, the level of skill development in children is basically in line with expectations, but at the beginning of a certain period, there is a sudden or gradual decline or loss of skill level, and the rate of incapacity is inconsistent.

Simply put, the child is born with normal development, but then it begins to regress.

What are the early manifestations of "regressive" autism?

Retrogressive autism generally occurs between 15 and 30 months in children, with inconsistent rates of incapacity and with a prolonged period of stagnation in capacity development.

It is mainly manifested in the obvious regression of the acquired language function, or even complete loss, even if the child retains part of the language, the spontaneous functional language is very rare, the communication motivation disappears, and it is difficult for adults to communicate with it. A small number of children have strange sounds or stereotyped, repetitive language, showing the characteristics of autism's language disorder.

At the same time as the regression of language, it is accompanied by the regression of nonverbal skills, mainly for the regression of social functions, such as decreased gaze, disappearance of spontaneous imitation behavior, indifference, rare response to calls or instructions from adults, disappearance of rendezvous attention behavior, etc., but still attachment behavior to relatives.

Only a few children develop stereotyped movements, such as finger waving.

It can be seen that developmental regression is not only a regression of language function, but a general regression of language, communication and social functions. It is only because of the particularity of language function that it often attracts the attention of parents first.

Some children recover after a period of regression, lasting as little as 14 months, and manifest themselves as a recovery of language and social functions, such as a gradual increase in functional language and more responses to family calls and commands.

However, even if there is some recovery, the children are still different from normal children, with different degrees of language communication disorders and social dysfunction, and most of the remaining children have no significant recovery and improvement.

Since the occurrence of developmental regression is precisely the period of rapid development of children's language and cognition, parents are reminded that once they find that their children have the performance of "retrograde" autism and have affected their daily lives, they should seek professional help and intervention as soon as possible.

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