What is Autism?

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a severely incapacitating, life-long, developmental disorder.  It affects how the person perceives and interprets their world, particularly the social environment.

Autism Spectrum Disorder affects one's ability to:

• Understand and use language
• Interact socially with people and make sense of the environment
• Develop and use imagination

The condition is also associated with obsessive and repetitive behaviours, sensory distortion and extreme sensitivity eg to light, noise and touch.

For reasons unknown, the prevalence of autism is increasing at an alarming rate.  In Australia, 2 to 3 children are being diagnosed with autism every day.

In NSW alone, there are 60,000 people with autism and of these, 15,000 are children.

To date, there is no medical cure for autism.   The only scientifically proven method of improving autistic children's academic, social and emotional outcome is Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA).