The Importance of Communication in Autism

For autism, probably the main thing that most people are looking for diagnostically is the use of communication. For neurotypical communicating something, I think it's something like 80% of their communication is nonverbal so not based on the actual words they're saying. So thinking about how that kind of difference in communication might manifest for girls in childhood. What we often see is girls in primary school often try and mimic a lot. We often see girls on the spectrum obsessively watching YouTube videos and then copying almost down to the T with their behavioral mannerisms. But there's some subtle cues in the way that someone might go about communicating that lets you know what their preferred purpose is.