5. Autism a. Definition of Autism
According to Bryna Siegel autism is a disorder in the capacity for social understanding. Along with this there comes to be certain ways that the child with
autism also has difficulties with language and how he processes the information coming from that senses 11. Based on this definition, Autism is defined as a
disorder which makes a person has difficulty to interact and communicate with other people. A person who suffers from autism tends to withdraw his self from
his social environment.
b. Characteristics of Autistic Learning Disabilities
According to Bryna Siegel autistic children have some characteristic of learning disabilities; they are characteristics of social autistic learning disabilities,
characteristic of communicative autistic learning disabilities, and characteristic of non-social learning disabilities 91-99. The description of each characteristic will
be stated as follows;
1. Characteristics of Social Autistic Learning Disabilities 1 Lack of Awareness of Others
A child who is unaware of others and what they are doing fails to apprehend a great deal of experiences that feed into the child’s development of how and why
people interact in the ways they do Siegel 93. It means that this child fails to comprehend many things around him that other children might notice.
2 Lack of Social and Emotional Reciprocity
An autistic child has lack of social and emotional reciprocity. It can be seen when a child is uninterested in doing things to please his parents or others. He is
uninterested to learn a new thing to earn attention or approval of other people Siegel 91. In another word, an autistic child has low desire to please other
people and low response to social praise.
3 Lack of Social Imitation
Usually, children learn new thing by” automatically” copying other children and adults because most things that others do are somewhat or very interesting,
merely because someone else is engaged in their activity. An autistic child does not seem to be motivated to copy action from other people Siegel 92.
2. Characteristics of Communicative Autistic Learning Disabilities 1 Deficits in Understanding Body language and Facial Expression
A child who suffers from autism appears to have poor comprehension of gestures or facial expression such as smile or nods of encouragement, frowning,
shaking head “no” Siegel 94.
2 Deficits in Expressive Body Language and Facial Expressiveness
An autistic child does not use a full or subtle range of facial expressiveness or body language to convey emotion communicatively Siegel 94.
3 Deficits in Understanding Spoken Language
Most autistic children have “selective hearing” which means an autistic child responds to some thing like a jingle but no to others. For autistic children, words
Kategori