Difficulties in Making Friends
Children often have obsessive interests which other children do not understand. They also tend to live in their own world. Their lack of empathy can lead to them coming across as uncaring and insensitive.
Autistic children often struggle to form friendships and they often make friends with people who have a similar interest to them. Their problems with social skills mean that they might have a low status with peers.
Campell and Marino showed that when instructed to choose buddies for new children, typical children were given high-status buddies, but autistic children were given low-status buddies.
Cognitive Development
On average autistic people have a below-average IQ but many have one that is above-average.
They tend to have poor empathy, but hyper-systemise (they perceive patters in information).
They tend to be educationally disadvantaged due to demand for social skills, but high functioning individuals may excel in areas like maths and science.
Problems with Communication
Autistic children have problems with communication, involving things like reading and writing. Some cannot speak, whereas others can speak fluently.
Using language is the area where autistic children tend to face the greatest problems. They may be able to speak in depth and knowledgeably about a topic of interest but are unlikely to be able to engage in a conversation about it.