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Autism is generally diagnosed between the age of 3 and 5 although sometimes it can be a little earlier depending on the severity. Autism is diagnosed when a person displays 6 or more symptoms listed across three major areas. These areas are; social interaction, communication and behaviour.

These children often have difficulty in mixing with other children and prefer to be alone in their own company. They also have difficulty expressing their needs and will more often than not use gestures or pointing in place of words. They fail to develop peer relationships appropriate to their developmental level and age. A lack of interest to share enjoyment or things that are of interest to the individual is also present, for example; these children wont come home from school itching to show their parents a painting they did, cookies they baked, or generally just point out objects of interest around them. Autistic children do not actively participate in simple social play or games, but prefer solitary activity only involving others to act as "mechanical" aids. The ability to speak is often delayed hugely or there is a total lack of, although sometimes just replaced by gestures. However in individuals who can use speech, there is a noticeable difficulty to initiate or to sustain conversation with others around them.

Behaviour in these children can also be "out of the ordinary expected" for children there age. Restricted or repetitive behaviour is displayed in interests and activities, a sort of "over interest" an interest that is abnormal in either intensity or focus. They appear inflexible to change and prefer set routines or rituals and become very unhappy or anxious if this is changed. The behaviour of body movements are also different to a non autistic child, hand or finger flapping or twisting are often displayed or in some case whole body movements. Sometimes appearing to be preoccupied with parts of an object rather than the object as a whole not noticing the function of the object necessarily. These children a lot of the time appear to the people who know them well as acting deaf not taking any notice of what's going on around them, to accompany this there is little or sometimes no eye contact. Noticeable over physical activity or under activity. Possibly earlier on in autistic children, there are a lot of displays of extreme distress or tantrums sometimes it appears to be for no reason, other times it may be because the lack of skill in communication the

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