Two studies published over the past month followed individuals with autism at various ages and showed that they gain developmental skills differently than controls do.
Studies of autism prevalence should screen a representative sample of all individuals in the population, even those with no indications of the disorder, says epidemiologist Young-Shin Kim.
A fraction of children with autism show significant improvements in social and communication skills over time compared with their peers with the disorder, according to a study published 2 April in Pediatrics.
Social impairments in autism are likely a consequence of deficits in social motivation that start early in life and have profound developmental consequences, says psychologist Robert Schultz.
Individuals with autism may belong to one of four groups with discrete sets of symptoms, the most distinct of which includes immune system abnormalities accompanied by sleep problems and sensory sensitivity. The results were published in the April issue of Autism Research.
A new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, made headlines this week by suggesting that motherhood obesity may increase the risk of autism in children.
Children with autism don’t follow certain grammatical rules, according to one of the few studies of the disorder from the field of linguistics.
Accurately measuring the severity of autism remains a challenge for the field. The answer may lie in using more than one approach that varies depending on whether it is being applied in a clinical or research context, says Raphael Bernier.
A detailed brain imaging study of people with Williams syndrome, a developmental disorder characterized by a highly sociable personality, has found a series of structural, functional and connectivity deficits that converge on a part of the brain called the insula. The findings were published online 12 March in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Two mutations in an autism-associated gene, neurexin-1, may have combined to cause autism in one man, whereas family members with only one of the two mutations have other neurological disorders, according to a study published 15 February in the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B.