The following other symptoms may be present 
- Gross and sustained impairment of emotional relationships with people, aloofness and/or empty symbiotic clinging.
- Apparent unawareness of their own personal identity (e.g. posturing, self-mutilation, and failure to use "I").
- Obsessive use of and preoccupation with objects without regard to their functions.
- Resistance to change in the environment and a striving to maintain sameness.
- Excessive, diminished, or unpredictable responses to sensory stimuli.
- Acute, excessive, and illogical anxiety especially precipitated by change.
- Speech may have been lost or never acquired.
- May use echolalia and certain idiosyncratic words.
- Distortion in mobility patterns such as bizarre postures or ritualistic manner isms, strange gestures and toe walking.
- Serious retardation with possible islets of normal or near normal intelligence and sometimes exceptional functioning in very isolated areas.
- Poor concentration, short attention span and distractibility.
- Minimal social and self help behaviours.
- May place him/herself in danger by, for example, not watching while crossing the road.
- Does not show mutual sharing of interests, activities, and emotions with others, particularly other children.
- Does not understand the perspective of others.
- May be aggressive if frustrated or if a child comes too close to their space.
- May line up toys and not be interested in their function.
- May seem unaware of what is going on around them.
- May wander off in shopping malls and in parking lots seemingly without a sense that they are alone.
- Mainly engages in interaction in order to get what they want.
- May "use" a person's arm in order to get what they want or to do something they cannot do. This has been called "hand leading" and is used instead of pointing.
- Does not use the emotions of others or "social referencing" in order to decide how to act.
- Does not follow through on the requests of others because they are really not understood and the child is doing what he wants to do.
- May enjoy physical contact with parents and other caregivers if it is when they want it.
- May not seek out comfort when upset or hurt.
- Show little desire to imitate or copy another person's behaviour.
- May show self-injurious behaviour.
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About Autism 
