Is Autism a mental illness?

Autism is actually a neurological disorder and not a mental illness. This means that the brains of people with autism are wired differently leading them to process information differently. It is a developmental disorder which is different from an illness and the distinction is important. An illness denotes that a person contracted the problem at some point in their life while a disorder indicates that they were born this way. But autism can very well be accompanied by common mental illnesses such as anxiety or depression.