Helen McCabe reports that China’s political and economic climate affects the quality of autism interventions. How do culture and policy affect autism treatment in other countries?

Robots may be able to help treat children with autism when qualified therapists aren’t available, according to a study published 3 December in IEEE Translational Neural Systems Rehabilitation Engingeering.

Helen McCabe’s analysis of autism interventions in China underscores the need to provide information on evidence-based treatments to parents and teachers.

Because infants born into families with autism are more likely to develop the condition, studying them might lead to ways to diagnose people in the general population earlier.

Two new studies that follow the development of children with autism suggest that distinct subgroups of the disorder exist early on, and that the severity of symptoms in most of these children remains stable over time. 

Two healthcare organizations have pooled their data to create a registry of 20,000 people with autism, a resource that may help speed up clinical trials and other research.

Evidence for the benefit of behavioral treatments for autism is modest at best, according to a systematic review published 1 November in Pediatrics.

Early intensive therapy may normalize the brain’s response to faces in young children with autism, according to a study published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The results are part of a randomized, controlled trial of a treatment called the Early Start Denver Model.

A genetic panel intended to predict the risk of developing autism debuted for clinical use in April, while another is in commercial development and a third was published in Molecular Psychiatry in September. But some experts are concerned, saying the tests are based on preliminary scientific evidence.

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.