Easter College

SPED DEPARTMENT
Easter Road, Guisad, Baguio City

MODULE 2
SY 2020-2021

TRIAD OF IMPAIRMENTS
Autism is a lifelong developmental disability affecting how someone communicates and
interacts with other people. In England around 1 in every 100 children has autism and it
is more common in boys than girls.
Autism is also known as Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) because the symptoms of
autism vary a great deal along a spectrum from mild to severe. However, people with
autism will all share some similar characteristics. The ‘Triad of Impairment’ is used to
describe the main features all people with autism have difficulty with to some degree.
 Easter College
SPED DEPARTMENT
Easter Road, Guisad, Baguio City

MODULE 2
SY 2020-2021
 Easter College
SPED DEPARTMENT
Easter Road, Guisad, Baguio City

MODULE 2
SY 2020-2021

Social interaction:

 Behaves as if others do not exist, treating people as objects

 Can be unresponsive to peoples voices/attempts at communication
 Finds making friends/building relationships difficult
 Struggles to manage unstructured parts of the day

Communication and Language:

 Difficulty with both the processing and understanding of verbal information

 Difficulty understanding jokes/sarcasm/literal interpretation, social language,
body language and paralinguistic features (intonation, stress, tone of voice)

Imagination/Rigidity of thinking:

 Likes things to be routine and structured

 Obsessively follows rituals
 Can have impaired imaginative play (especially with others)
 Lack of empathy for others
 Has a poor awareness of danger (thinking forward/what can happen)

All people with autism will show difficulties in these areas but to varying degrees.
Alongside this triad some people with autism can have many different features
accompanying their autism, for example;

 Learning disability
 Mental health problems.
 Sensory sensitivity: either hyper-sensitive (e.g. dislike of loud noises or touch)
or hyposensitive (will seek out sensation e.g. putting things in their mouths or
enjoys vibrations)

The severity of the condition will determine how it affects someone’s life. Some people
with severe/low functioning autism with associated learning disability will be completely
dependent on other people in all areas of their life and may be unable to communicate
with people around them. However, others with less severe/high functioning autism are
likely to be able to integrate into society and be quite independent.