What is autism?

Boy in a studio with a balloon

Autism is a lifelong neurological condition that affects 1 in 100 children in the UK1. Autism affects communication, social understanding and imagination. It can also affect an individual’s sensory experiences. Autism is a spectrum condition, which means that it affects different people in different ways.

Currently around 70% of children with autism are educated in mainstream school and the remainder in specialist provision2. Given the right support, children with autism can and do thrive at school.

The three main areas of difficulty:

There are three main areas where children with autism may find difficulty:

  • social skills  – such as making friends and interacting with other people.
  • communication – explaining how they feel and think including problems with speech and other ways of communicating, such as facial expressions and gestures. Some children simply do not learn to talk.
  • imagination – understanding that other people have thoughts and feelings. Children with autism can be very rigid and may have fixations on different objects or topics.

Children with autism always have difficulties in these three areas but they show up very differently from child to child.3

Children with autism have an individual way of looking at the world. Some have particular strengths such as an ability to focus on detail and concentrate for a long while on one thing; some have a talent for learning facts and particular skills. Many have quite severe deficits in all three main areas. Children with autism may react differently to sounds, sights, smell, touch and taste, which affects their response to these sensations. They may also have unusual sleep patterns and behaviour.

Diagnosing autism

It can be hard to diagnose autism in very young children because the age at which children typically learn to walk, talk and play can vary. One child may say little until they are two and then start to speak in sentences; some children may be walking before their first birthday and others may be 18 months before they start.

Children may speak late for all sorts of reasons: they may be busy learning other things such as walking; they may be twins who often develop language later; if your family is bilingual, they may be learning two languages at once. Some children may have less experience of face-to-face talk with those in immediate contact with them. If you are worried that your child is not developing in the same way as other children, ask for a check up from your doctor or clinic.

Useful links

Footnotes

1. Office of National Statistics (2005), Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain, London: Palgrave Macmillan
2. DCSF (2009), Special Educational Needs in England: January 2009
3. Early Support Information for Parents: Autistic Spectrum Disorders, DfES 2006