Before my cousin was born, I had very little knowledge of Autism or what someone with Autism would look like. I also had very little knowledge of what it meant to interact with someone with Autism. Growing up we didn't learn a whole lot about people that were different from us and when kids received news from specialists about having a learning disability, it prompted a very shocked and somewhat sad reaction.

Having taken child development courses after he was born, I am able to understand that Autism is very much an umbrella term and is a spectrum disorder. There are higher functioning individuals that only have mild symptoms but are otherwise like any other person. There are lower functioning individuals that do require constant care, and there are also people ranging everywhere in between.

I enjoy interacting with my six-year-old cousin, JD, and watching how he grows and changes in comparison to other kids his age. Watching him grow through pictures, videos, and interaction, I have been able to understand bits and pieces of his world and what makes him special.

JD does have Autism, but from what I understand is extremely high functioning. This means it's fairly unlikely that you would think he had Autism just from an interaction with him. However, JD is also changing the way I see him and Autism every single day.

He's like any modern day six year old. He likes to play video games and put puzzles together. He loves cartoons and animated movies. I'm pretty sure he could recite the entire movie script for 'The Incredibles' if you let him, which is fitting since I used to tell him that he looks like Jack-Jack to me. He has opinions on things and he has seemingly endless energy. However, after getting to know JD you can tell that he is different from others in some ways.

He has a harder time socially than some other kids. He is still very much in the parallel play stage, where he would much rather color next to you or have you watch him play 'Beach Buggy Racing' (his favorite tablet game) rather than allow you to play it with him. He also isn't too keen on starting a conversation unless he knows you well enough and even then the conversation is short and sporadic.

Usually, when I talk to him our conversations start with, "Hey, Lexi?" "Yeah, buddy?" "Did you know..." and then something that I usually had no idea was even a thing and it turns out he knows way more about it than I do. Sometimes he forgets what he wants to say so it just stops at "Did you know?" and then he walks away.

He is attentive when it comes to feelings, even if he may not understand them very well. There was one time my sister was teaching his Children's Church class and got visibly frustrated with the fact that almost none of the kids were listening. She sat on a little kid chair to calm down and JD came up to her and said, "You look like you need a hug. Are you upset? When I'm upset I count. Do you need to count?" and then he hugged her and counted to 10 until he was positive it had helped. Honestly, it was the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Sometimes when JD gets a haircut he will rub his head on your hand while adorably demanding you notice the haircut, or if he has light up shoes he really wants you to get excited about it. Sometimes, he just doesn't want to talk or interact at all. He isn't mean about it. He usually just responds with "No thank you" or by saying nothing at all if you talk to him. Loud sounds do tend to bother him so often I see pictures of him at sporting events with earmuffs so he isn't overstimulated by the sounds.

He is also super intelligent. I took four years of Spanish in high school and retained nothing. At 3 years old, JD intentionally set his tablet to be in Spanish and could still understand everything he was seeing. That same year I also watched him put together a digital puzzle of the world and tell me what each country was.

At six years old he spells out any word he can and tell you how many syllables it has without even batting an eye. He also remembers more movie quotes than any kid I have ever met in my life. Pretty sure he's better at math than me too.

JD does seem to have some sort of understanding that he is different from the other kids, but it doesn't seem to bother him at all. He also is aware that other people understand his differences. Through interacting with JD, I have come to understand that while I'm sure he has his moments, having Autism really doesn't make him much different from any other six year old.

If anything his differences are all the more reason to love him because he is apologetically himself and has the capacity to do the greatest of things. He has his own world with his own set of rules and he loves it which in turn makes you love him even more.

JD helped take the negative view of Autism away and open up an entire new world full of counting, tablet games, Pixar movies, and so much more. He's definitely shown me that there is more to anything than meets the eye.