UK Autism Campaigners are appealing to the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to invest in the lives of autistic children in the UK. Autism is a neuro-developmental disorder -over 500,000 people in the UK are on the autism spectrum. According to researchers 1 in 100 children may have autism. Over 90,000 children in the UK are autistic - many suffer without proper access to public services in education, health, specialist speech therapy and respite care.

To understand the meaning of a conversation, kids automatically do what adults do —besides processing the meaning of words, they unconsciously "read" the expression on a person's face and listen to their tone of voice, then integrate that information with the context at hand to discern meaning, be it humor, anger, irony or straightforwardness.