World Autism Awareness Day 2014: This message from the pupils of Limpsfield Grange, the only school for autistic girls in England, will change the way you view them forever

Students at the Surrey school have created this incredibly moving video in order to raise awareness of girls with autism

There are many common misconceptions about autism.

It is not an illness that affects ‘sufferers’, but a lifelong developmental condition that affects how an individual person relates to and communicates with other people, and how they make sense of the world around them.

It is a spectrum condition, which means that people with autism may share certain difficulties, but that it will affect their lives in different ways.

It is also not a condition that only affects boys. Girls are affected by it too.

Often, girls who suffer from autism are diagnosed later on in their lives for a number of reasons. Not least because as a gender, they are often better able to follow social actions by delayed imitation and therefore mask the signs.

This means that thousands of autistic girls struggle through early life, aware that they are different but not why they are different.

The pupils of Limpsfield Grange have created this incredibly moving video in order to raise awareness of girls with autism.

The school in Surrey is the only such educational establishment for autistic girls in the entire country, and the message their students have decided to send might change the way you view them, and others living with the condition, forever.

For more information about the school click here. For more information on girls with autism, visit the National Autistic Society here.