• Unfocused, patternless activity — ​unable to focus or give pattern to behavior, to “tell themselves a story” about what they’re doing, or to recognize connections in what others are doing.
• No sense of cause and effect — logical consequences or relationships of actions not understood.
• Lack of conscience — problems with lying, stealing; unaware of others’ feelings; no empathy.
• Attention problems — unable to focus attention on anything for long, even if high interest.
• Poor language ability — speech delayed, and then sloppy.
• Memory problems — unable to reliably remember things learned; activity, skill, or fact seems to disappear, then can resurface days or weeks later.
• Hyperactivity — unable to sit still or stay in one place; move around room, often at high speed.
• Impulsivity — unable to control urges; this interferes with learning and with social interactions.
• Temper tantrums — sudden and unpredictable tantrums or changes in mood; some children can scream for more than an hour without cessation.
• Violence — impulses and mood swings can lead to violence; individuals unable to understand, recognize, or predict their own behavior.
• Flat affect — do not show sadness, anger, or joy in appropriate ways; apparently unaffected by normal emotions in others; often appear expressionless.
• Lack of body awareness — late walking, and then awkward; sleep disorders; eating disorders, including eating 2 or 3 full meals within an hour, or going without food for a day; feel pain, but do not respond appropriately to it, may continue impulsive pain-producing actions; toilet training problems continuing into school age; impaired coordination.
• Easily overstimulated — unable to distinguish importance or strength among stimuli; respond to stimulus overload with hyperactivity or shutting down (losing consciousness); sensitive to changes of any kind.
• Socially isolated — self-absorbed; no bonding in infancy, few friends, no intimacy; resentment at isolation.
• Inappropriate social behavior — unaware of boundaries of social behavior; unable to learn by watching or listening to others; may take teasing literally and act on it; often too loud or too active; often act out.