Autism Spectrum Disorder: Unraveling the Layers of the Mind

What Is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition marked by persistent difficulties in social interaction, communication, and restricted, repetitive behaviors. The term “spectrum” reflects the wide variability in symptoms and severity. Some individuals are nonverbal and require full-time support; others are highly articulate but struggle socially or emotionally.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR) defines ASD by two main criteria:

1. Deficits in social communication and interaction across contexts.
   
   

2. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities (APA, 2022).
   
   

ASD is typically diagnosed in early childhood, but many individuals — particularly females — may be misdiagnosed or overlooked until adolescence or adulthood (Loomes, Hull & Mandy, 2017). Girls often mask their symptoms, mimicking peers or developing elaborate coping strategies.

Prevalence and Demographics

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023):

• Around 1 in 36 children in the U.S. is diagnosed with autism.
  
  

• Boys are about 4 times more likely to be diagnosed than girls.
  
  

• It occurs across all ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups.
  
  

However, diagnostic disparities exist. Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged children are more likely to be diagnosed late or misdiagnosed with other disorders like ADHD or conduct disorders (Mazurek et al., 2014).

Symptoms and Behavior

Core Features

• Social Communication Deficits
  
  

  • Avoids or struggles with eye contact
    
    

  • Lacks interest in social games or peer relationships
    
    

  • Difficulty interpreting tone, facial expressions, or gestures
    
    

  • Speaks in flat, robotic, or overly formal tones
    
    

• Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors
  
  

  • Repetitive motor movements (e.g., rocking, hand-flapping)
    
    

  • Intense interest in narrow subjects (e.g., trains, weather, dates)
    
    

  • Inflexible adherence to routines or rituals
    
    

  • Unusual sensory sensitivities — e.g., distress from loud noises or fabric textures
    
    

Associated Conditions

• 70% of individuals with ASD have at least one co-occurring mental health condition; 40% have two or more (Simonoff et al., 2008). These include:
  
  

  • ADHD
    
    

  • Anxiety disorders
    
    

  • Depression
    
    

  • Intellectual Disability
    
    

  • Epilepsy
    
    

  • Sleep disorders
    
    

  • Gastrointestinal problems
    
    

These comorbidities often exacerbate challenges and complicate diagnosis and treatment.

Causes and Risk Factors

There is no single cause of ASD, but it is generally understood as a biologically based disorder with genetic and environmental contributors:

Genetic Factors

• Heritability estimates range from 64% to 91% (Tick et al., 2016).
  
  

• Over 100 genetic variants have been associated with autism, many affecting brain development, synaptic function, and neural connectivity (Sandin et al., 2014; Gaugler et al., 2014).
  
  

• Some cases involve de novo mutations — new genetic changes not present in either parent.
  
  

Prenatal and Perinatal Factors

• Advanced maternal or paternal age
  
  

• Premature birth and low birth weight
  
  

• Maternal infections (e.g., rubella) during pregnancy
  
  

• Exposure to environmental toxins (e.g., air pollution, pesticides)
  
  

• Complications during birth (hypoxia, cesarean delivery)
  
  

Despite early speculation, vaccines have no connection to autism, a fact confirmed by numerous high-quality studies (Taylor et al., 2014; Jain et al., 2015).

Diagnosis and Identification

Diagnosis is clinical, based on developmental history and behavioral observation. There are no blood tests or brain scans to confirm ASD.

Commonly used tools include:

• Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS)
  
  

• Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R)
  
  

• Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS)
  
  

Diagnosis often occurs between 18 months and 3 years, though signs can be observed earlier.

Barriers to diagnosis include gender bias, lack of culturally sensitive tools, and stigma in some communities, particularly in religious or conservative families.

Treatment and Support

There is no cure for autism, but early intervention can improve long-term outcomes. Common approaches include:

• Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA): a structured therapy focusing on positive reinforcement
  
  

• Speech and language therapy
  
  

• Occupational therapy
  
  

• Social skills training
  
  

• Medication (for co-occurring conditions like anxiety or aggression)
  
  

Yet, some in the autism community criticize ABA for trying to make children appear “normal” rather than respecting neurodiversity. Newer therapies focus on acceptance and communication over behavior control (Kupferstein, 2018).

Autism Through a Spiritual Lens

Across cultures, children who behave unusually — who don’t speak, who rock back and forth, who don’t respond to their name — are sometimes believed to be:

• Spiritually “touched” or “gifted”
  
  

• Possessed by jinn, demons, or evil spirits
  
  

• Punished by divine forces for ancestral sins
  
  

These interpretations may lead families to seek out exorcisms, religious rituals, or isolation rather than medical care. In some regions, children are subjected to restraints, fasting, or beatings under the assumption that spirits must be driven out.

The WHO warns that religious misinterpretations delay care and increase suffering, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of South Asia (World Health Organization, 2021).

However, some faith-based communities have begun to embrace neurodiversity, seeing autistic children as part of divine design — not punishment. Spiritual leaders can play a vital role in encouraging understanding and inclusion rather than fear.

HAQ’s Embrace

At the Home of Abrahamic Quiver, we do not view Autism as a clinical malfunction — we understand it as a sign of spiritual imbalance. What the world labels as “spectrum disorder,” we often see as a spirit under siege — not by evil, but by unseen forces that pull the child between realms.

When a child does not speak, avoids eye contact, or repeats movements endlessly, we don’t rush to medicate. We ask: What force is trying to speak through them? What spirit has silenced their tongue, or caused their mind to retreat from this world?

The symptoms that baffle medicine — the inexplicable screams, the fixated rituals, the spiritual unresponsiveness — are often the marks of a deeper possession, not by demons in the cartoon sense, but by displaced energies, ancestral grievances, or ruptured spiritual pathways.

At HAQ, we don’t treat. We intervene — through prayer, ritual, and spiritual alignment. We do not diagnose a child with autism. We recognize a child in spiritual struggle, caught in a liminal space between the physical and the immaterial.

Our response is not medication. It is presence.
Our method is not behavior modification. It is soul reclamation.
We do not ask what disorder you have. We ask: Who are you beneath the disturbance?

This is where science fails — and where we begin.

References

• American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., Text Revision).
  
  

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). Data & Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html
  
  

• Gaugler, T. et al. (2014). Most genetic risk for autism resides with common variation. Nature Genetics, 46(8), 881–885.
  
  

• Jain, A. et al. (2015). Autism occurrence by MMR vaccine status among US children with older siblings with and without autism. JAMA, 313(15), 1534–1540.
  
  

• Kupferstein, H. (2018). Evidence of increased PTSD symptoms in autistics exposed to ABA. Advances in Autism, 4(1), 19–29.
  
  

• Loomes, R., Hull, L., & Mandy, W. P. L. (2017). What Is the Male-to-Female Ratio in Autism Spectrum Disorder? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 56(6), 466–474.
  
  

• Mazurek, M. O., et al. (2014). Disparities in diagnosis and access to services for children with autism spectrum disorder. Developmental Neurorehabilitation, 17(6), 389–395.
  
  

• Sandin, S. et al. (2014). The familial risk of autism. JAMA, 311(17), 1770–1777.
  
  

• Simonoff, E., et al. (2008). Psychiatric disorders in children with autism spectrum disorders: Prevalence, comorbidity, and associated factors. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 47(8), 921–929.
  
  

• Taylor, L. E., Swerdfeger, A. L., & Eslick, G. D. (2014). Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies. Vaccine, 32(29), 3623–3629.
  
  

• Tick, B., Bolton, P., Happé, F., Rutter, M., & Rijsdijk, F. (2016). Heritability of autism spectrum disorders: A meta-analysis of twin studies. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(5), 585–595.
  
  

• World Health Organization. (2021). Autism spectrum disorders. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/autism-spectrum-disorders

"My Son and the Silence That Stays"

A mother’s story

My son was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder when he was three. But even before the diagnosis, I knew something was different.

He didn’t look at me when I called his name.
He rarely cried. Rarely laughed.
He’d sit in the corner of the room, spinning the same toy car over and over again, not driving it, not playing with it — just watching the wheels turn.

Sometimes he’d flap his hands and rock back and forth for hours. Other times, he’d scream without warning, covering his ears as if the sound of the world was too sharp. He wouldn’t sleep at night. He wouldn’t eat unless the food was arranged in exactly the same way. And when the routine changed — even slightly — his whole body would shut down, as if something inside him cracked.

I took him to doctors. Specialists. Neurologists.
They gave him labels. Numbers. Scores on assessments.
They said it was “sensory integration disorder,” “expressive language delay,” “mild intellectual disability.”
Then came the medications — first for sleep, then for mood, then for anxiety. One pill became two. Two became four.

But nothing changed.
He still screamed.
He still rocked.
He still seemed unreachable — not just to me, but to the world.

And the more I watched him… the more I felt like he wasn’t alone in that silence.
Like there was something else in there.
Something watching back.

HAQ’s Embrace

At the Home of Abrahamic Quiver, we do not see this child as a disorder to be managed. We believe children like him are not merely “on the spectrum” — they are caught between this world and another.

HAQ does not see Autism as just a demonic possession — we believe it is often something deeper, more layered, more ancient. It can be a spiritual hijacking, a soul displaced, a channel left too open. Some forces do not enter with violence — they enter with stillness.

We do not medicate. We intervene.

Our work is not clinical — it is sacred.
We pray. We guard. We search for what spirit is speaking through the child’s silence.
We do not chase it out with fear. We meet it with force, with faith, and with fire.

At HAQ, your child will never be reduced to a diagnosis.
We will do everything in our power — spiritually, prayerfully, and relentlessly — to bring them back.

Because we don’t believe your child is lost.
We believe they are waiting to be retrieved.