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Spectrum: Autism Research News

Tag: diagnosis

October 2023
A person stands in front of a neatly organized dresser drawer

Teasing apart insistence on sameness with Mirko Uljarević

by  /  30 October 2023

The hallmark autism trait has multiple facets, Uljarević and his colleagues have found.

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A group of elementary school children run toward the entrance of a school, their backs turned to the camera.

Journal club: Why do some children lose their autism diagnosis?

by  /  9 October 2023

More than one-third of a cohort of autistic toddlers no longer meet criteria for the condition at school age, according to a new study, but the findings may not generalize because the cohort is predominantly white and affluent.

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September 2023
A hand reaches from above to add a pill to a stack that is resting against the x-axis of a graph.

Looking at eye tracking’s potential for clinical trials

by  /  28 September 2023

This month’s Going on Trial newsletter explores how eye tracking might be used beyond helping with diagnosis, among other drug development news.

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Illustration of a series of thin blocks of various shapes, sizes and colors positioned to resemble a bar graph.

Accounting for autism’s prevalence

by  /  20 September 2023

Read recent Spectrum coverage about autism’s apparent rise in prevalence — and some of the potential explanations for it.

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Research image of organoids in the forebrain.

Head size parts autism into two major subtypes

by  /  12 September 2023

An imbalance in the number of excitatory neurons in early brain development may account for the difference.

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Large colorful geometric shaped toys with children balancing on them.

Autism diagnosis: A moving target

by  /  7 September 2023

This collection of Spectrum stories explores some of the evolving debates, challenges and methods used to make an autism diagnosis.

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Research images from an eye-tracking study.

Tablet-based tool to spot autism validated in two studies

by  /  5 September 2023

The new tool could help clinicians diagnose autism in children younger than 3, the findings show.

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Young child stacks colored blocks on a table.

High prevalence of developmental delay strains Australia’s support systems

by  /  1 September 2023

The nation needs to build capacity to support the roughly 20 percent of children in Australia who have developmental delay.

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August 2023
A grid of four brain scans showing excess cerebrospinal fluid.

Is excess brain fluid an early marker of autism?

by  /  17 August 2023

Brain scans of hundreds of infants suggest that up to 80 percent of those with autism have unusual amounts of cerebrospinal fluid. Researchers are studying how this might contribute to the condition.

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July 2023
Illustrated portrait of Amy Wetherby.

Amy Wetherby: Impatient for progress

by  /  26 July 2023

A speech-language pathologist by training, Wetherby has spent more than four decades developing tools to help identify and treat autism early; now her work has taken on a more personal sense of urgency.

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