Recently, I met a mother of a 14 year old.

With tears in her eyes, she spoke about her daughter.

“I can’t bring her anywhere. She’s become highly aggressive.”
“It’s not possible to travel with her. I haven’t stepped out of the house in ages. Her dad had to be with her, while I attended this meeting with you.” She said.

I could see the pain in her eyes as I asked about how all of this began.
She shared that when her daughter was about 3, she lost speech and regressed. Later with the help of therapies such as speech, occupational, special ed and a host of people supporting her, her daughter got into a top Montessori school and progressed.

She showed me little videos of her beautiful child prior to Covid.
With Covid came isolation, online classes, plenty of screen time.
To top it all- it was puberty time for her daughter.

Then all hell broke loose, as the teen now had access to YouTube videos that she learnt appropriate and non-appropriate stuff from.
The house help got terrified, as she would say nasty things without provocation. Abusive words learned from online videos, were rampant.
The situation worsened to the point where the parents couldn’t take her out any more. Friends who asked for this bright and cheery child no longer wanted to connect with her.

Progress in this beautiful girl’s life had been made by working on the Co-occurring conditions alone.

What if the parents had the opportunity to work on the Core Deficits of Autism?

For those of you who are wondering what Core Deficits mean. These are also known as the universal deficits of autism. Which means that irrespective of the level of severity of autism, the core deficits are present.

Let me explain the Core Deficits, simply.

Co-regulation: Your child understands his or her role in a situation without being instructed or prompted.
A person may have adequate language and speech, but does s/he recognize her/ his role without being explicitly told? In a dynamic situation, does your child automatically understand his/her role?

Self-Regulation-Your child’s ability to be able to control self and actions in various situations.
At a higher level it involves regulating the pace of thoughts and words in responses to changes in the environment.

Joint Attention: Your child’s ability to shift attention in a dynamic situation. To be able to observe what is important to be observed, without being informed or told to do so. It’s also about your child’s ability to share focus with another person.

Personal Agency: Your child’s sense of self and intrinsic motivation. It’s about them knowing that through their actions they can create a change. It’s related to an inner motivation, not extrinsic.

Interpersonal Responsibility: Your child understanding the impact of their actions on others.
We’re all interconnected. This core deficit is related to building relationships and taking responsibility to keep an interaction going.

You might be experiencing the Core Deficits in the following ways. Take a look at this image.





Does this resonate? These are the core deficits of autism.


I also referred to Co-occurring conditions. These are specific to each child. They are not universal. For example- some children with ASD have problems with speech and language, others may not. Some have medical issues that others don’t have.

Some Co- occurring conditions- examples of a few:





I hope you see how the universal deficits impact your child, on a moment to moment basis.
It’s not that the co-occurring conditions are not important. They certainly are. In fact, they can create major hurdles in our lives.

However, the Core Deficits are Universal. They result from a differently wired brain.
If we work on the Core Deficits first, they will create a lasting change in the lives of our children.


If the mother of the 14-year-old, had worked on the core deficits, perhaps things would not have been so bad for her? However, it’s never too late. The brain can continue to change through life. I’ve worked with many older individuals to see wonderful changes in their lives.

Here is an instance of family that has been working on the core deficits since the child was 4 years old.
Surabhi, mother of 8-year-old, Atharv, sent me this message a few days ago.


Last Friday, I sat with Atharv for his homework related to long division.
I realized he hadn’t learnt his tables and was confused with the concept.
I asked him to learn his tables well, then only we can proceed with the concept.
He learnt and revised on Saturday.

We sat again on Sunday for practice, he was much better but there was still a bit of confusion. So, we decided to practice later. I just wanted to give him time to process.

In the evening, he got up took a marker and went straight to the whiteboard and gave himself some really difficult questions, those were 5 to 7digit dividends, and double digit divisors.

I was surprised how he was challenging himself. I couldn’t believe it as I saw him struggling with 3digit sums in those 2days, and how he turned it into his strength.

I can see the power of Intrinsic Motivation.

Surabhi Jain





Beautiful account by Surabhi, isn’t it?

The Core Deficit being discussed here is ‘Personal Agency’ or intrinsic motivation.

Having skills, learning how to do these divisions could be problematic for many of our children. These are ‘co occurring’ conditions and not the core areas of autism.

Working on the Core deficits and building intrinsic motivation helps them tide over the issues they have. In Atharv’s case, his resilience to succeed helped him learn complex division.

When you’re struggling with your child, make sure to address core issues. That brings about a change at the root cause level. This ensures that the changes are lasting changes.

Many adults on the spectrum, struggle with holding down a job or maintaining relationships, though they have adequate amounts of language. The solution is to work on the Core Deficits of ASD.

Build the foundations, you’ll experience higher rates of success.Your child/teen/adult has excellent potential- work on the areas that will give you maximum progress.

On this auspicious day of Dussehra or Vijayadashami, I wish you great joy and fulfilment. May you and your family achieve great victories.