Autism is a developmental disorder as opposed to a mental illness.

Luckily, I stepped in for my son who is now 20, back when he was 3. He got to go to an intensive preschool classroom with only 6 children and 2 teachers. Back then parents had to fight and advocate to get ABA training, which is one on one discreet trial training. I did not get the one on one training. After preschool we tried a typical kindergarten class but he needed more attention so we switched to a structured autism classroom.