What are the characteristics of autism?
Autism is a neurological developmental difference that influences (i) social interaction and social communication, and (ii) behaviour and processing sensory information.
To break that down:
- Neurological means it’s an aspect of the individual’s nervous system; how the brain processes. This means autistic people process information in a different way, focusing more on some things and less on others than non-autistic people.
- Developmental difference means that the signs of autism primarily show up in a different pace of development, so many autistic people tend to start communicating, reading, engaging in self-care and so on to a different schedule than non-autistic people.