AUTISM

(Infantile autism; pervasive developmental disorder)
Autism is a complex syndrome of childhood in which intellectual growth is uneven and social development is impaired. Common characteristics include unresponsiveness, inability to speak or communicate and understand, refusal to seek or accept physical comforting, and an unusual insistence upon routines, e.g, autistic children often make repetitive body movements, and even the most trivial change in their physical environment or routine can provoke rage or extreme anxiety.
Some austistic children mimic sounds or develop intelligible speech patterns, and some are mute.
About 20 to 40% have seizures.