Teenagers with autism can reliably measure their own quality of life and are more satisfied with it than are their parents, who over-emphasize their children’s social and emotional difficulties, according to a study published in February in The Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

A long list of autism researchers has officially rebuked le packing, a barbaric autism therapy that’s well known in France.

As genetic testing becomes routine, people are likely to face difficult choices about parenthood.

A rare childhood speech disorder related to social anxiety is associated with a gene linked to autism, according to a study published in December in Biological Psychiatry. The results suggest that the two disorders share a common mechanism.

Autism is popularly viewed as a disorder of childhood, not old age, but that doesn’t mean senior citizens are unaffected.

Copy number variations, or CNVs — duplications or deletions of DNA segments — can influence the expression of unrelated genes on the same chromosome, according to a study published in November in PLOS Biology.

Mice lacking one copy of a gene associated with Williams syndrome share the hyper-sociability of people with the disorder, according to a paper published online 3 December in Autism Research.

As more drugs enter clinical trials for fragile X syndrome and soon, hopefully, for autism, the placebo effect will become an important consideration.

Researchers have designed an automated cage assay to minimize the anxiety mice feel as they are being tested for social behavior. The new technique was presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

An asocial inbred mouse strain called BTBR may show behaviors associated with autism, such as avoiding eye gaze and forming an attachment to objects, researchers reported Monday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.