When you hear the word "autism", the movie "Rainman" usually pops into people's head. Autism is defined as a neurologicial disorder that affects development. It can range from the mild or sever. I have a six year old son who falls into the more sever side of it. When we first learned of his digagnosis, it was incredibly overwhelming. We always knew something about Alex was just not right. He developed normally but he never picked up speech. When he was a baby(around 11 months), the first thing we noticed that was a little odd was his sleeping pattern. He NEVER slept more than 2 hours a night. Sometimes he would be up for over 48 hours with no sleep whatsoever. I lived on coffee. As he started to grow, he would never look when you called his name. I did mention our concerns to our peditrician. We were assigned an early intervention program for therapy. I can't say this program help a lot, but it was a beginning. We had to deal with a lot of sensory issues. He hated the way things felt on his feet without shoes. He would freak out over grass. He rarely ate food with a lot of texture. I spent countless hours on the internet looking for ways to help. There are so many available therapies it can get confusing. Treatment for autisic childen is very expensive. I've heard of parents spending over 100k or more per year just in thearapies. Like most average income earners, we don't make near 100k, so we had to work with what we had. When he was 3 he started going to school. He was put in a special classroom called PPCD(preschool program for children with disabilities). He attended that until he was 5. He is now in a class for kids that just have autism. I can't stress the importance of treating autism early. In the years since he's started school, he has made tremendous progress. He still doesn't talk, but can communicate by other means. He does understand some sign language and will use the picture exchange system occasionally. He is totally potty trained. I never ever thought I'd be able to write that.