The autistic child is the perfect example of a handicapped person who handicaps all those who surround him, starting with his parents. There is no possible communication through words, as most autistic people do not speak at all. Some of them have a kind of language, but never use it to have a conversation. Some echo words or questions; and some create their own language using invented words. Their range of interests and activities is extremely limited and anything new or unusual makes them panic. One in three suffers from epilepsy and all are prone to crises of rage which are totally unpredictable. A terrible kind of chaos goes on in their heads—one psychiatrist explains that when they listen they cannot see, and when they look they cannot hear.

But who knows what these autistic children, adolescents and adults really live through? What is going on behind those eyes that are either turned inwards on themselves or are so empty that they seem to be staring into a void? What do their stereotyped movements, frozen positions and dramatic self-mutilation mean? Do they have nothing to say for themselves because they do not speak the same language as other people? Until the 1960s autistic people were considered profoundly backward and were cared for with the mentally handicapped in psychiatric hospital wards when their parents could no longer cope with them at home. They were physically restrained rather than educated, and the few carers who looked after them had no resources and no real training. Nobody really knew if anything could be done for them, or how.

Fifty years after Dr Kanner gave the condition a name, the enigmas of autism have still not been solved, and there is no treatment or cure. One thing that has changed is that the parents are no longer blamed for their child’s suffering. It had been thought that the child’s withdrawal into his own isolated world was the result of the mother’s failure to forge a proper relationship with him. Nowadays, the guilt may have lifted, but parents who care for an autistic child at home rarely sleep through the night or contemplate taking a holiday. When these children reach adulthood the options for their care are very limited. There are psychiatric hospitals, which are not adapted to their needs, or just a few places in specialized centres for young autistic adults.