The goal of studying siblings of children with autism is to identify an early diagnostic marker for the disorder. What researchers are finding instead are distinct traits shared by family members who remain healthy.

Depression in mothers of children with autism may not be a consequence of their child’s condition, but of their own genetic profile, says a provocative new study.

People with autism show differences in the levels of various gene products compared with their unaffected siblings, according to a study published online in September in Brain Research.

Parents and siblings of people with autism have abnormal eye movements and score higher on tests evaluating traits associated with the disorder.

Many parents of children with autism show some mild traits of the disorder. Research on this group — labeled with the ‘broad autism phenotype’, or BAP — suggests that the genetic underpinnings that lead to language or social problems can manifest in very different ways.

In the fall of 1980, when he left his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, for undergraduate studies at Cornell University in upstate New York, John Constantino was determined to pursue one of two careers: a doctor or a school teacher.

Are older fathers more likely to have children with autism? A series of epidemiological studies is giving credence to the idea, suggesting that, with age, sperm may accumulate damage that increases risk in the next generation.

Itʼs not often that movies, books and plays represent science accurately, or with a true and empathetic understanding of its complexity.