Autism spectrum disorders are a group of neurodevelopmental disorders, one of the main characteristics of which is impaired social communication. But what happens in patients' brains that disrupts their social skills?
Just a suggestion:
Brains are self-sculpting organs and the opportunity for self-sculpting is much greater in humans than in other apes because of secondary altriciality (rapid brain growth continues after birth) and extended childhood (more than in chimps). 75% of human brain growth occurs outside the womb whilst infants are active in the world, and busy sculpting their own brains. Self-sculpting is achieved in two waves each marked by rapid arborization followed by pruning (greatest anatomical change between 2-5 years and 11-15 years). Normal children spontaneously do all the right things to ensure normal development of self/other awareness (intersubjectivity) such as song-and-dance display, pretend play, role-play etc. Autistic children are deficient in pretend play and I think this is the major reason for their social deficiencies (according to social mirror theory and the "play and display" hypothesis).
Autistic people tend to have larger brains than normal which suggests normal arborization with inadequate pruning.
These two factors (deficient play and pruning) may explain their social problems, intollerance of change, and the occasional prodigies of art, music, maths, etc.
There is a growing literature on the neuroanatomy of individuals with autism.
It generally posits patterns of under connectivity between relatively distal parts of the brain and over connectivity in localized areas. That is, there appear to be too few nerves connecting relatively distant centers and too many nerves in smaller localized areas.
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