Autism Awareness Month

April was autism awareness month for people all around the world. But, what is autism? Autism is a mental condition in which the person affected has difficulty in forming relationships, listening, paying attention, or even communicating. Autism is generally discovered in children when they are two to three years of age, but can be detected as early as eighteen months of age.

Autism is caused by genetics, or even the environment, around the child. There is no specific cause in the environment linked to autism, though. There are many different levels of autism. High-functioning autism means that the person affected still has normal speech development, but has other, small problems. Those small problems can be a hard time listening or drifting off when others are listening.

Mild autism still allows the person to have a strong verbal skill-set and few behavioral issues, but the person could still struggle with social communication or sensory issues. Severe autism often makes people non-verbal, causes bad behaviors, and makes it harder to learn than for other people their age. Autism affects many people around the world. Learning about it is important to understand the people who go through it.

Images: “Autism Awareness Ribbon” by Meleese on Wikimedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Autism_Awareness_Ribbon.png)