JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – A little blond-haired boy rings the school bell. Lined up behind him, his classmates yell and jostle with each other in excitement. Like any school going kids, break time is fun – it is chance to play with friends.

But the startling thing about the 30 children running onto the playground at The Key School in Johannesburg is that all are autistic … they prefer to play alone.

Solitary five year old Momo is a striking example. Her teachers say she only plays in the sand box where she likes to repeatedly pick up the sand and throw it – mostly at you.

Teacher Reinette Palmer says the sand throwing is  Momo’s preferred way of communicating – that’s she’s trying to get attention with her behavior.

Momo is a sweet looking little girl, with a pixie-like face filled with wide-eyed innocence. But she will not look me or her teachers in the eye. She seems driven to constantly move around and throw sand by something deep inside her.

Later, I meet her mother Tumi, a small, smiling 27 year old. Tumi tells me she has two other daughters, younger than Momo. Momo was only diagnosed with autism last year, but she says she knew something was wrong with her eldest child years ago when Momo kept on missing her milestones and didn’t start talking.

She says her interactions with her family have improved since she started attending the Key School a year ago, soon after her diagnosis. Tumi says before she came to The Key School, Momo’s behaviour was embarrassing. “The tantrums she threw, we couldn’t take her out in public. It was hell. People stared and made comments, she tells us.”

To help parents like Tumi and to ensure that home life with autistic children is not a constant battlefield, Reinette says she and the other teachers focus on teaching life skills. While we are at the school, we see groups of children being taught to brush their teeth, wash their faces and say their prayers. These are small milestones for most children but a big deal for many autistic kids.

Here in South Africa, autism is still misunderstood and stigmatised, says the Principal of Key School, Jenny Gous. She says there is little support for parents with autistic children too. “Very little available for people with children with autism,” she says. “Whole lot of people not getting intervention. There are seven, eight, nine, schools touching less than a thousand children.”

She tells me her school is called The Key because you never know what will unlock the potential of the children here.

A sentiment summed up by Reinette while she is sitting in the sand box with Momo. Dodging sand, smiling gently at the five year old, she says: “They’re in this world but not from this world. Our task is to bring them back to this world so they can cope.”