More boys than girls have autism; diagnostic biases and genetic factors may explain the skewed sex ratio.

A new strategy for diagnosing autism shortens the evaluation process — and the wait for answers.

Girls with an autism diagnosis have more severe impairments in social communication than boys with the diagnosis.

A widely used test for autism misses some children with delays in motor, social and communication skills.

A patent on variants in an autism gene is unlikely to hold up in court, but may still hinder research, some experts say.

Many children eventually diagnosed with autism lose social skills between 18 months and 3 years of age. But few parents notice this trend.

Pediatricians disagree with specialists 25 percent of the time on whether a child should receive an autism diagnosis.

The move to replace ‘mental retardation’ with ‘intellectual disability’ is widely accepted, but little data exist on the impact of this change.

The strict definition of autism in the latest version of the diagnostic manual is antithetical to the idea that autism comes in a wide variety of forms.

Five years after its latest revision, the manual used to diagnose autism is back under scrutiny, as evidence suggests it excludes some people on the spectrum.