It is difficult for people who have no immediate or personal experience of autism, or of people with disability or special needs, to comprehend the great pressures on those families directly involved. Autism is a rare condition, which is characterised by what is called a triad of impairments: difficulty with developing imagination, difficulty with verbal and non-verbal communication and difficulty with social relationships. It affects about one in 700 newborn children and three out of four people who suffer from autism are male. There are approximately 1,950 children and adults with autism in Ireland. It can be suspected as early as a few weeks or months after birth, or not until the age of two or two and a half. What I find unusual, from a physical view, is that people with autism look perfectly normal and understandably this can often lead to difficulty in diagnosing the condition.