"How can we know that people with and without Autism think differently?"
One well-established way of learning about human development is to think about the mental processes of a human being's mind. From birth to age 2, infants’ sensory and information processing systems usually become more organized and integrated in ways that help us interact with, and learn about, the physical world around us. This allows us to become fully ready to rapidly acquire, store, and exchange an ever-greater base of nonverbal cues and verbal terms for people, objects, events, and ideas. This is when our objective capacities for, and subjective awareness of, the power of communication begin to emerge. From age 2 to 5, we may then begin our lifelong learning of knowledge, growth of awareness, and gains in useful skills in ways that help us nurture our own unique innate mental abilities. During this time, the typical learning curve of young children without Autism is rapid, simultaneous, broad, and well-integrated. We now know that Autism changes both the innate patterns and nurtured potentials of early human learning in ways that will then often impact how well we may function long term. We also know that the study of these Cognitive aspects of Human Development is critical to our better understanding, assessing, and educating of children and adults along the full spectrum of Autism and full range of our possible general intellectual capacity as well. Professionals study our human learning and teaching practices in the field of Cognitive Psychology and Educational Practice research.

"How can the information provided here help us understand Autism?"
The MENTAL column links below provide a basic information about how Autism impacts our minds. It also goes on to provide fact-based explanations of our cognitive systems are effected by Autism, commonly shared ideas providers have about of the universal elements and diverse patterns of communication that come into play when people with and without Autism interact and a new model of the mutual binds Autism creates for us all. This leads to a more contextual view of the models we may use as maps to understand and learn from each other, and a discussion of how individual educational service providers may be able to participate in helping our organizations reorient to the shared meta-needs of, and diverse resource adaptations needed by of people with and without Autism as we live, work and cope together. In addition, we provide lists of literature sources for some of, but not all, of the more conceptual forms of scientific research into various educational intervention approaches that may be available to families. This information is not intended to be a complete encyclopedia on this topic, but rather to offer a use-able orientation to get new family and novice service providers more familiar with important ideas and key concepts about the nature of Autism and life span educational interventions.

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