Family Types and Cognitive Deficits in Autism

"Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how a person communicates with, and relates to, other people. It also affects how they make sense of the world around them." Autism is a complex developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person's ability to communicate and interact with others. It is believed that the syndrome of autism probably begins before birth. That is why it is considered a congenital birth defect. Autism is also known as the tri-impaired disorder: social impairment, language/communication impairment and repetitive/restrictive behaviour. Autism occurs more frequently in males. The sex ratio is approximately 3.5 to 1 which are similar to other developmental disabilities. The prevalence of autism is generally estimated as l case per l000 population. Mudur (2004) found out that one in 500 Indian infants has autism. Gardner (2008) found out that children who are born underweight or early have more than double the risk of developing autism and the risk was especially pronounced among low-birth-weight girls. Park et al. (2014) suggested that males are more severely affected than autistic females in major symptoms. Many other studies have indicated a number of key factors related with autism, but the association between family types and the development of autism has not been discussed anywhere despite its' significance. The present study was conducted with the objectives to assess different cognitive deficits in autistic children and to find out the effect of joint family and nuclear family on autism. The study comprised of 60 autistic children within the age group of 3 to 5 years belonging to different socioeconomic background. They were selected randomly and diagnosed through administration of Autism Checklist (AC) and Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS). Their performances were tested with the help of Hema Pandey's scale "Pandey's Cognitive Development Test for Pre-schoolers (PCDTP)", which consists of six sub-tests (Concept Formation, Information, Comprehension, Visual Perception, Memory and Object Vocabulary). The data found in Hema Pandey's test along with the demographic scores analyzed statistically by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). In the result, it was found that family types have more or less significant effect in determining cognitive deficits of autistic children. As regards Concept Formation, it is found that children in nuclear family have significantly more deficits than those coming from joint families, whereas in Information process, though not significant the nuclear family children indicated more deficits than those from joint families. As regards Visual Perception scores, it is found that the autistics belonging to nuclear families have more deficits than those belonging to joint families. Analysis of Variance performed on Object Vocabulary indicates that children from nuclear families have more cognitive deficits than the children from joint families. Regarding Memory scores, the children from joint families performed significantly better than the children from nuclear families. Overall, the findings of the above study strongly establish the fact that the types of families have significant contribution towards cognitive functioning in autism. The subjects with joint family had higher cognitive scores than the subject with nuclear family.