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As a parent with a child with autism, it's been really tough to experience your child having autism.

Autism is a very serious condition.

Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.

Don't think that there's a different, better child 'hiding' behind the autism. This is your child. Love the child in front of you. Encourage his strengths, celebrate his quirks, and improve his weaknesses, the way you would with any child. You may have to work harder on some of this, but that's the goal.

For a long time our son was a little boy with autism, which was a certain kind of challenge. Now that he's a teenager with autism - and a teenager who notices girls - we're faced with something else altogether.

Children do not give up their innate imagination, curiosity, dreaminess easily. You have to love them to get them to do that.

Autism is an extremely variable disorder.

Autism does exist on a spectrum, and there are so many manifestations of it, so many kinds of expressions of it. And every case is particular.

People think about autism as something with kids. Well, those kids grow up.

Autism is a neurological disorder. It's not caused by bad parenting. It's caused by, you know, abnormal development in the brain. The emotional circuits in the brain are abnormal. And there also are differences in the white matter, which is the brain's computer cables that hook up the different brain departments.