People who have severe gastrointestinal problems during childhood are no more likely to be on the autism spectrum than are healthy controls, a study reported 21 March in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology.

The first comprehensive autism study in South Korea has found that the prevalence of the disorder is more than double the number in the United States.

The brain collects information on an object’s orientation, direction and speed all at the same time, according to a study published 15 April in NeuroImage.

A new documentary blasts misperceptions about nonverbal people with autism, showing that they are capable of intelligence, wit and empathy even as their disorder chains them “like a beast.”

Smaller-than-normal volume in several brain regions, including a region involved in relaying motor signals, could be a marker for repetitive behavior in 3-year-old children, according to a study published 7 April in Autism Research.

Good mouse models of autism, and accurate tests to assay their phenotypes, are key to both narrowing down a cause and developing effective treatments, argues expert Jacqueline Crawley.

Two large studies published in the past two months have found that traits linked to autism are widely distributed in the general population. Although about 1 in 100 children is diagnosed with autism, up to 30 percent of people may have at least one of the traits associated with the disorder.

Few scientists have a career that spans as wide a spectrum in autism research as Simon Baron-Cohen, professor of developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. And fewer still garner effusive compliments from those who don’t agree with them.

Of 72 newly elected members of the National Academy of Sciences, 7 work either directly on autism or in related areas, illustrating the growing intellectual breadth and depth of the field.

A child in Australia is more likely to have autism if he or she is the first-born, is born to a woman who is older than 40 years, or belongs to a family of higher socio-economic status, according to a study published in March in PLoS One.