Professor GERALDINE DAWSON (Director, Autism Center, University of Washington): When we think about the brain systems that are involved in autism that are responsible for things like eye contact or interest in other people or the development of language, these are brain systems that come on in the first year of life, certainly bysix to seven months ofage.
In 1963, at theageof forty-six, he made up for it by setting up his own informal school in a London railway station, teaching half a dozen teenagers in exchange for a little tobacco or a second-hand art book.