Question: what is the difference of a autistic childs brain and a autistic adults brain?

Yes, great question Luke + Sparkle.

After we are born our brains wire themselves up. Initially our brains create far too many neurons, which in turn makes for far too many connections with other neurons throughout the brain. By the time we are 6 years old, our brains are 95% of their adult size.

Strangely, as we get older our brains prune away the brain connections in order to make the brain circuits more efficient. Our neurons send signals through the circuits, strengthening those that work and weakening or eliminating those that don’t. Our environment and experience can effect this process, so can our genetic make up.

Even in adolescence your brain hasn’t finished maturing. It’s for this reason that we have to be careful what we feed our brains, they are very vulnerable even up to our 20s (even later for boys).

So everyone’s brain is different between when they are a child and when they are an adult.

Some scientists have found that in Autism, several brain regions that are important for social, memory and motor functions don’t develop and prune in the same way through out adulthood. Due to Autism being first spotted early on, around 2 years of age, most of the research focusses on early brain changes however.