What is autism (ASD)?

The brains of people with autism work differently. They process information in a different way and that often leads to unexpected and unusual reactions.

From the outside, so their behaviour, people with autism appear to experience difficulties with:

• connecting with other people and understanding social situations;
• the way they communicate with other people;
• the ability to adjust behavior or interests;
• movements.

On the inside, so at brain level, someone with autism processes information in greater detail. This comes at the expense of seeing coherences. This is why people with autism often have difficulty with:

• filtering important and less important information.
• processing information (takes more time).
• processing and applying new information (having greater difficulty adapting).

What these problems look like differs depending on the person, age and environment.

Read further:

• From what age is autism visible?
• Is autism different in girls than in boys?