Autism
Imagine trying to understand what your teacher is saying if you didn’t know what her words really mean. It is even more frustrating with someone who has autism. Autism is a mental condition, present from early childhood, between birth and 3 years old, characterized by difficulty in communication and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts. Every day, our brains interpret the things we see, smell, hear, taste, touch, and experience. But when someone’s brain has trouble interpreting these things, it can make it hard to talk, listen, understand, play, and learn. A kid’s symptoms could be very mild, severe, or in between. For example, some kids might be upset by loud noises or a lot of noises going on at once. Kids with mild symptoms don’t mind the noises as much. They also don’t need much help with daily tasks and learning as kids with severe symptoms who need constant help. Autistic kids sometimes can’t make connections that other kids can make easily. For instance emotions. When a certain person smiles, you know they feel happy; when that person looks mad, you can tell by their facial expression or their voice. But autistic kids have trouble understanding what those emotions look like and what that certain person is thinking. The symptoms of autism are trouble learning the meaning of words, doing the same thing over and over, like saying the same word, moving his or her body in a certain way, like raising their hand, having trouble adjusting to changes, like trying new foods or their belongings moved from their usual places. Autistic people like repetitive. They wake up every day with expecting to do everything they’ve done from the day before and plan on doing it for a long period of time. From the time they brush their teeth to what bowl they use to eat, everything must be the same. A problem with this issue is that they have more trouble growing out of it. According to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the CDC, 1 in 88 kinds has autism, but no one knows what causes them. Scientists think that there’s a connection to genetics and the environment. Some kids are more likely to get this disease because it runs in their families but kids with no history of autism can also get this disease as well. Knowing the exact cause of autism is very hard because the human brain is