Autism as an Infantile Post-trauma Stress Disorder: A Hypothesis

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder which affects a great number of children around the world while the etiology is largely unclear. A hypothesis that autism is an infantile post-trauma stress disorder (PTSD) was proposed in this article based on comparisons of symptoms between ASD and PTSD and the integration of findings on neural basis of autism and the Intense World Theory of autism. Attachment related trauma was considered as the main traumatic experience related with autism and specific neural basis which interacts with trauma in the development of autism was discussed. Based on the hypothesis, we insisted that restoring the attachment between the child with autism and the parents and re-establishing the sense of security and control in the child were the main goal of interventions for children with autism.