You dont grow out of autism. I dont believe its as bad as some people think, although their are varying degrees of it. A friends daughter has it and lots of her family members in the older generation have similar communication problems (although never diagnosed, as from a different era), they are all married with their own children and hold down good jobs, in fact they are quite intelligent. Aparently there is a book called "a curious incident about a man and a dog" which helps you understand it immensley.