PERSPECTIVE
Autism and Visual impairment: A First Approach to a Complex Relationship
Roberto Pili1, Bachisio Zolo1, Pericle Farris2, Valentina Penna2, Simona Valinotti2, Gian Pietro Carrogu3, Luca Gaviano3, Roberta Berti3, Lorenzo Pili3, Donatella Rita Petretto3, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2021Volume: 17
First Page: 212
Last Page: 216
Publisher ID: CPEMH-17-212
DOI: 10.2174/1745017902117010212
Article History:
Received Date: 17/5/2021Revision Received Date: 22/9/2021
Acceptance Date: 11/10/2021
Electronic publication date: 22/12/2021
Collection year: 2021
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Since the first half of the 20th century there has been an interest in the study of the relationship between autism and autistic-like clinical features and with visual impairments. Autism Spectrum disorders are one of the more worldwide-studied neurodevelopmental disorder with an increasing prevalence in the last ten years. Visual impairment is a condition which derives from several causes (genetic, constitutional, injuries, nutritional and environmental ones). Again, it is a kind of spectrum and an overarching category, because visual impairments range from refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism), to amblyopia, strabismus, and to partial and total blindness. Since the first study of Keeler (1956) which described autistic-like patterns in five preschool children who were totally blind due to retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a growing number of researchers addressed the relationship between autism and visual impairment. In this paper we focused on it, aiming to discuss on some lessons learned in this field and to discuss some open questions since the first research in this field.
