Spectrum: Autism Research News

Isabelle Rapin, a child neurologist who spent more than 50 years working with people with autism, passed away 24 May at the age of 89.

Systematic analysis of video clips is better than questionnaires are at assessing repetitive movements in children with autism, says Sylvie Goldman.

It took 50 years for scientists to develop instruments reliable enough to be considered the gold standards for diagnosing autism. Autism has always been around, but it was not until the mid-1940s that Leo Kanner in the United States and Hans Asperger in Austria, both physicians, independently described children with what we now recognize as autism.