Infants who are later diagnosed with autism are less attentive to the presence of a person onscreen at 6 months of age than their typically developing peers are, according to a study published 14 January in Biological Psychiatry.
People with autism are adept at detecting whether two items appear on a screen simultaneously or close together in time, according to a study published 14 December in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
The families of children with specific language impairment do not have a history of autism, according to a study published 28 August in Genes, Brain and Behavior. The results bolster the theory that the two disorders have independent risk factors.
People with autism don’t look at others’ eyes or mimic their actions in everyday life, but they can do these things when asked to, according a review published 7 September in Brain and Development.
About 30 percent of children with autism have symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but under current diagnostic guidelines they can only be diagnosed with one or the other. That’s about to change.
A new cognitive test demonstrates the difficulties people with autism have with flexible thinking, according to a poster presented Wednesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.
Children with autism recruit different brain regions than controls do when estimating how much time has gone by, according to unpublished research presented Monday at the 2012 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.
Many researchers have reported atypical brain connectivity in people with autism lying passively in a brain scanner. But those differences may be the result of what participants are thinking about, rather than of an underlying neural defect, according to a poster presented Sunday at the 2012 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.
Some studies have suggested that people with autism have deficits in executive function — a set of complex mental processes involved in everyday life. But these results may instead reflect their difficulties imagining what other people are thinking, according to a provocative new hypothesis.
Propranolol, a drug used to treat heart disease and anxiety, might improve memory and attention deficits in autism, according to a study published in the May issue of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.