At birth, the brains of autistic children are larger than those of normal children.

Oh! Why is development slower than normal? Isn’t a bigger brain better?

Part 1: A Big Brain Does Not Mean Smart

There are a few possible reasons why someone might have a large brain:

1. Large amount of brain tissue that functions well (Normal)
2. Large brain, but works poorly and slowly (Underactivation, Underconnectivity) This is often seen in children with autism or other special needs.
3. Large brain due to excess cerebrospinal fluid (Hydrocephalus) This is not a good situation. The excess fluid in the brain compresses the brain tissue, which can lead to severe delays development.
4. A brain tumor can make the brain appear larger, but it actually compresses the healthy brain tissue. This can lead to a variety of neurological problems.

Part 2: The problem is not just in one part of the brain, it’s throughout the whole brain.

In special children, their brains are larger than normal children at birth. This means that the pathways are longer, and it takes longer for nerve signals propagation.

The signals are sent more slowly (underconnectivity). It’s like a car that can only go 20 kilometers per hour, and the road is also not paved, so it’s bumpy. This also makes it slow for nutrients to be transported from the supporting cells to the brain cells.

And this problem doesn’t happen to just 10-20 cells, it happens to over 100 billion cells in the brain! (The brain has 84-100 billion neurons, and about the same number of supporting cells.)

As children grow older, the brains of special children grow more slowly than those of normal children. In the end, their brains will be smaller than those of normal children. This is just one of the abnormalities that occurs. I hope this short article will help parents and guardians understand what is happening in the brains of their children.

Summary of the size of the brain of special children:

1. At birth, the brain is larger than normal, causing slow signal transmission and less function than normal.
2. The problem is not in a specific area, but in the entire brain, involving hundreds of billions of cells.
3. As the child grows, the brain will become smaller than normal children.

Note: Not all special children have this characteristic. Some children have small or underdeveloped brains from birth. Special children can be helped to improve to the point where they can take care of themselves and live in society if they are understood and treated correctly.

Don’t give up!