If you're new to autism and aren't sure what it is, this video is for you.

I'm going to try and explain it in under 60 seconds. Let's see if I can do it.

So first of all, autism is a brain wiring difference that creates challenges for someone, specific challenges for someone, that impacts the way they exist in the world.

Now I'm going to talk about how it's diagnosed to give you an idea of what it actually is.

So autism is broken up into two main categories: social communication challenges and restricted repetitive patterns of behavior.

Within the category of social communication challenges, there are three subcategories, which I'll explain in a second.

And a person needs to meet all three of these categories in order to get a diagnosis.

Within the category of restricted repetitive behaviors, there are four subcategories.

But a person only needs to meet two of the four in order to be diagnosed.

So here are the three social communication subcategories.

The first one has to do with the way a person engages in conversation and how, quote-unquote, “reciprocal” it is.

An autistic person typically struggles in this area.

The second social communication subcategory has to do with nonverbal communication.

So this is where eye contact comes in, or gestures. In my case, I use a lot of gestures and I've even knocked things over during conversations.

The third social communication challenge has to do with relationships.

So this is where a person might struggle to make or maintain friendships or romantic partnerships, things like that.

Now for restricted repetitive behaviors, like I said, there are four subcategories.

The first one has to do with what they call self-stimulatory behavior, or stimming.

This is fidgeting, physical movements. It could also be hand flapping. It could be a lot of things.

The second one is what they call insistence on sameness, or inflexible adherence to routines.

The third one has to do with restricted interests. So this is where a person's special interests might come up. If they talk a lot about something. In my case, it's autism.

And the fourth one has to do with sensory over- or under-sensitivities.

Now, I think this one is in this category because of the way it manifests.

So for example, in my case, my sensory over-sensitivities results in me having a pretty limited wardrobe. Just as one example.

Okay, so that's autism in a nutshell.

But please know that there's so much more to it.

So if you think you might be autistic, or a loved one might be autistic, you definitely want to do more research.

But I hope this video gave you a little bit of insight into autism, at least at a high level.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments.

And I hope you found this helpful.