Clinicians should place children under age 5 who have developmental delay into a broad diagnostic category, called ESSENCE, which may then resolve into any number of individual diagnoses over time, says Christopher Gillberg. 

Age-based cutoff scores for BISCUIT, an early diagnostic tool for children with autism traits, help clinicians accurately identify children who also have other disorders, says Johnny Matson.

Autism may be male-biased in prevalence, but our understanding of it should not be, argues Meng-Chuan Lai.

Certain mutations may hijack the normal mechanisms of sperm production, leading to an enrichment of mutant sperm in older fathers, and to the paternal-age effect in autism.

The autism-like features seen in related neurological disorders may be the result of intellectual disability and not a shared underlying biology, says Alan Packer.
 

Understanding the basis of sexual dimorphism in autism may not only inform our treatment of this condition, but may translate to therapies for many other mental illnesses, say Nirao Shah and Devanand Manoli.

Preschool-aged children with autism make developmental and behavioral gains, regardless of the type of classroom in which they are enrolled, say Brian Boyd and Samuel Odom.

Emerging evidence indicates that microglia, the brain’s immune cells, are altered in some individuals with autism, raising questions about their role in brain development, says Beth Stevens.

Many children with autism have problems with sleep, which can worsen symptoms of the disorder. A better understanding of sleep in autism may help reveal the mechanisms of autism and point to potential treatments, say Ruth O’Hara and Michelle Primeau.

School-based interventions are arguably the best way to reach the truly underserved, under-represented and under-resourced children with autism, says Connie Kasari.