What is autism/pica?

Unrelated: Autism is a disorder characterized by impaired impaired social interaction and communicatoin and odd behaviors. Pica is a phenomenon of eating non-food items regularly, e.g., dirt or paint chips. The latter can occur with autism, but it is not a specific characteristic of that disorder.

Pica causes: "persistent craving and ingesting non-food items" may be seen in typicallly developing children till age 2. After that, it's worth checking for neurobehavioral, psychiatric and nutritional disorders. I've had patients with intellectual disability, with or without autism, who ingested metal objects, batteries and other dangerous things requiring removalof objects & repair of damaged teeth.