Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Koblenz-Landau (Fachbereich 2: Philologie - Institut für Anglistik), course: Psycholinguistics, language: English, abstract: This research paper tries to outline autism and the causes of the disease, but has to confine itself to some of the most important approaches. In order to grasp what autism means, the first chapter presents two relevant definitions of autism - the WHO International Classification of Disease and the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Chapter two shows that there is no single cause of autism, but a variety of aspects to consider. The third chapter focuses on language production in children with autism whereas the fourth chapter presents exceptional skills that were found in "savants", people with incredible abilities in isolated areas.