Parents who have a child with autism often decide not to have any more children, according to a study published last week in JAMA Psychiatry.

Two autism screens are better than one at identifying toddlers who need specialized clinical services.

A teenage girl with Rett syndrome has a mutation in WFR45, a gene that is mutated in people who abruptly lose motor and mental skills in adulthood, according to a study published 13 March in the Journal of Human Genetics.

The nature of the mutation that leads to Angelman syndrome — a disorder characterized by speech impairment and developmental delays — affects the disorder’s presentation, reports a study published 19 March in Research in Developmental Disabilities.

The symptom severity of three girls with fragile X syndrome tracks with how much the levels of the fragile X protein in their blood differs from that of their unaffected mothers. If the results, published 29 January in Molecular Syndromology, are confirmed in a larger study, they may help doctors predict how the disorder will manifest in girls.

Women who take antidepressants such as Prozac while pregnant may increase their sons’ risk of autism and developmental disability, reports a study published 14 April in Pediatrics. But, like other studies before it, the study leaves room for doubt.

A Norwegian study published in February suggested that the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers fails to detect many cases of autism at 18 months of age. The creators of the test explain why there’s more to the story.

By age 2, children with autism show difficulty with movement, communication, emotional control and problem-solving, distinct from the symptoms of children with other disorders, reports a study published in February.

A set of six questions about child development can identify parental biases and help to improve the accuracy of a commonly used autism test, according to a study published 30 March in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

In the brains of people with autism, certain genes are suppressed by a chemical tag that increases binding to MeCP2, the protein implicated in Rett syndrome. The findings were published 21 January in Translational Psychiatry.