Autism is a severely limiting life-long disability.
It typically appears during the first three years of life. Research indicates that autism occurs in approximately fifteen out of 10,000 births and is four times more common in boys than girls. Autism is a problem of understanding messages from the senses, especially sight and hearing. When messages from eyes and ears reach the brain, they are not linked into an understandable picture of the outside world. This leads to a lack of understanding of speech and gesture, which results in a lack of ability to communicate.