Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disability, typically evident by age three, that adversely affects verbal and non-verbal communication, social interaction and educational performance.

Children on the autism spectrum have fundamental qualitative deficits in communication, socialization and symbolic/imaginative play and suffer from a bewildering array of challenges.

Four times more common in males than females, autism is a lifelong condition that strikes people from all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds.

Symptoms and deficits include aggressive and/or self-injurious behavior, repetitive body movements, considerable strengths or weaknesses in cognitive functioning, social withdrawal, intense attachments to objects, extreme resistance to change, unusual responses to sensory stimulation and frequent tantrums.

People with ASD have difficulty understanding how the world and people around them operate and find it hard to interact with others beyond the most rudimentary levels.

Teaching and treating children with autism is enormously challenging and labor intensive. The pervasive symptoms and deficits associated with the disorder frequently make learning in a public school setting impossible and interfere with the child’s ability to function as a member of the community.

Children with autism are highly unpredictable and require more structure than their typically developing peers. Families with an autistic child often have difficulty engaging in “normal” daily activities and rely on stringent routines that revolve around the child with autism.

The impact of autism on children, families and the community is immense and growing. Over the past 12 years, autism diagnoses in the United States have risen an alarming 782 percent.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the incidence of autism has increased from 1 in 5,000 children in the 1970s to 1 in 150 children today.

Over the next decade autism is expected to surpass mental retardation as the nation's most common developmental disability.