What are ASDs?
ASD is one of the most prevalent and complex conditions of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDD). NDD is a set of complex disorders with varied conditions under their belt. Each condition is characterized by different symptomatology, presentation, and differs in the age of onset. However, it is unified in its origin (generally during the developmental period) and often presented with overlapping symptomatology in conditions. Their etiological basis is genetic in nature. NDDs give rise to disabilities in children due to many impairments noted life-long. Impairments occur in the children's developmental domains, such as social, pre-academic, motor, speech, language, self-help, cognitive, and play skills (Jeste, 2015).
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM, 5th ed., American Psychiatric Association, 2013), ASD is featured with deficits in social communication, interaction, limited, odd patterns of behavior seen early in the child's development. On an average across the globe, one in 160 children is diagnosed with ASD (World Health Organization, 2013). It is the most prevalent among the NDDs worldwide and in India (Arora et al., 2018). With increasing survival rates and lowered mortality rates of neonates, the number of children with the risk of NDDs has also increased (Global alliance for vaccines and immunization for India [GAVI], 2019; Zaka et al., 2018). A pooled prevalence rate of 0.09 is reported in the ages of 0 to 15 years in a meta-analytic review on the prevalence of ASD from India (Chauhan et al., 2019).