What is Autism?

Did you know that autism affects 1 in 150 people? They don’t really know what causes autism. Although I thought I saw something earlier this year about something to do with a missing gene. I might be mistaken. I will have to hunt that one down and share it tomorrow. Autism is a neurological and developmental disorder. People with autism view the world differently than those that don’t have autism. For autistic people, it’s hard to talk and express themselves to others using words. People with autism and not all people tend to keep to themselves and many of them can’t communicate without special help. They may tend to react to what’s going on around them in unusual ways. For example, you are in a crowded gym with lots of kids. The chatter is loud as there is laughter and screaming and kids just having fun. You see a child cover his or her ears. That child is covering their ears because to them it’s overly loud. That child may be noise sensitive. So you see this example is of a child that may react differently than a normal child.  People with autism may not make connections as easily as their peers. For example, say you are joking around and everybody around you laughs, but the person with autism gets upset because they think you are laughing at them or making fun of them. It may be that they don’t make that connection that is was a joke. People with autism may act in unusual ways. Examples here are hand flapping, repeating words over and over, and temper tantrums. One might think a child is being bad when they are having a tantrum but in all reality, it might come down to they aren’t making a connection or aren’t able to express themselves in appropriate ways. Here is a very short video describing what is autism