Autism is difficult to diagnose because the symptoms are as contradictory as they are varied, although the one constant is behaviour not present in the vast majority of the population. In short, any diagnosis of Autism is going to be something of a puzzle.

For example, one child plays alone, but the other is very friendly. One child loves hugs while the other avoids eye contact. One child is non-speaking, the other is a chatterbox with an advanced vocabulary and frequently interrupts others. One child constantly feels overwhelmed and covers their ears at loud noises, while another flaps their arms when they’re excited.

One has frequent meltdowns while the other appears to be a perfect and model student.

One child loves lining up their toys and gets distressed at change, while the other flourishes with routine but doesn’t respond to their name. One child may be very selective in their eating habits while the other becomes distressed if they have to have their hair cut. Many autistic children Internalise their problems and because their behaviour doesn’t fit in with that of their peers, they become isolated and often fixated on specific interests, often consumed by specific and complex topics.

Overall, these children need to be understood and not chastised. Their behaviour is simply just another degree of different because they see the world in a different way. To coin a phrase, their brains are wired differently and there’s nothing that can be done to change this. More than that, it would be wrong to try and change this behaviour. In the more civilised world, we no longer lock up people with autism in asylums. Instead, we have learned to accept them.

Einstein is said to have autism — that may well account for his eccentric, yet original, genius (he is reported to have an IQ of between 160 and 190 which is more than the average of 100. The same can be said of Sir Isaac Newton, Beethoven and Mozart. It has been said that Elon Musk is autistic, as was Alan Turing, the mathematician who broke the

German Enigma code in WWII. So instead of getting frustrated with behaviour that’s difficult to understand, maybe we should accept is as a gift.

One more thing to consider is that people with autism often get frustrated, sometimes because of the behaviour of others to ward them, and sometimes because they get ‘stzck’ with things they don’t understand. We know that self-hypnosis can help calm frustration and because of the concentration and focus involved, autistic minds should be able to accomplish this with ease.