Autism is a developmental disorder that affects children while they are toddlers. Children with autism develop normally until between the ages two and four, during which their development is severely affected. Children with autism begin to lose the ability to make emotional connections with other people, and their learning is harshly affected as well. Children can fall on a range of how much their learning and emotional content is affected. However, children with autism will never make the emotional connections than children without. For instance, children with autism have a difficult time making eye contact and engaging in touch.

Children with autism also tend to have self-stimulatory behaviors such as rocking, head banging, and finger flicking. This often soothes children with autism. Children with autism often require specialized care due to their inability to care for themselves and due to the behaviors they can develop.

Although there is no specific treatment for autism, current research is looking into early intervention programs that engage in a high level of prompting. This seems to alleviate the severity of autism to some degree. There is no medication that offers treatment for autism at this time.

Not everybody with autism act the same way. People may function at different levels and have different symptoms. Thus, autism is known as a spectrum disorder, since people with the same disorder may not act the same or have the same skills.