Question

How do I answer using statistical reasoning and not a personal opinion about autism ?

Answer 1

First you need to describe what topic are you going to discuss regarding autism. Suppose that you want to answer a question such as: "Does autism prevent a person from leading a normal life ?"

In this case you can answer this based on a personal opinion of yours.

But since you have to answer this based on statistical reasoning, so you first need to collect a sample by surveying some families in which there is atleast one person who is autistic. Then you ask questions to the family regarding the life of that person, and whether it is any different from a normal person's life. You can grade each family's opinion from 1 to 10.

After collecting such a sample, you can then calculate its mean and standard deviation, and then perform a hypothesis test.

Using the p-value approach you can then answer the question.