The following is information about childhood autism from Dr. Ann Milanese, the director of Developmental Pediatrics at the Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford.

"Autism is a disorder that has characteristics. So, it's important to remember that children are children first, and they have symptoms of autism second. And, we refer to it as a spectrum because although you need a certain number of these characteristics to have enough to be called 'autistic' or on the autism spectrum, that there's a good deal of variability in the way the symptoms express themselves. ... Some of the children are much more functional than others and some need much more help than others.

"The autistic child does things and experiences things differently than other children and the areas that they have the most difficulty in are communication skills, social interaction, and then, the third category is behaviors. And, for young children, that includes their play behaviors and their interests and things like that. So, children who are more severely affected with symptoms of autism will have serious difficulties relating to other people, imitating, interacting with other people and they'll also have serious difficulties communicating either using words or communicating non-verbally by using their bodies, like eye contact and pointing and gesturing.

"The thing that I think is most important for putting children into structured activities is that they should be fun, (but) I think that if an activity pulls upon a child's area of weakness, it won't be fun and they will possibly then resort to behavioral strategies to avoid participating. So, we need to make sure the activity is desirable and fun for the child. And if it is, i would say, 'Great, go with it ... give it a try,' and see where it leads you. To force a child into it thinking that it might help in these skill areas would be, ... I would predict that it would be, associated with failure. ... You want it to be fun, you want it to be positively motivating, self-esteem building. It could possibly contribute to body awareness and a feeling of self-efficacy. It might enhance physical coordination. Certainly, exercise is good for everybody. There's actually some literature that suggests that putting ... autistic children through intense gross motor activity -- really work up a sweat -- helps them to get organized and pay attention in activities later in the day.

"I think some of the sensory activities are very comforting and very stabilizing to many kids with autism, so those would be activities like swimming. There's a large number of kids who are doing therapeutic horseback riding, activities like that. The activities give 'to' the children rather than demanding 'from' the children."

See more from Dr. Milanese and how martial arts has helped some children with autism, TONIGHT on Eyewitness News at 5

More Information

• Villari's Martial Arts Centers
• Autism Speaks
• Connecticut Children's Medical Center Autism Program
• Autism Society of Connecticut