Changes in diagnostic practices, more active neighborhood networks, and an increase in the number of older parents may all contribute to the massive rates of autism in California, says a group of social scientists. But the numbers still don’t add up.

Three articles published in the past few weeks show that diagnostic categories marked off neatly on the page often bleed together messily in the clinic.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism may have more in common than childhood onset and a few similar symptoms. New research suggests the conditions share genetic roots.

The psychiatrists who literally write the book on the definitions of mental illness have announced their plan to group all autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger syndrome, under a single category.

A newer version of the psychiatric manual may expand the definition of autism, folding in Asperger syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified.

It took 50 years for scientists to develop instruments reliable enough to be considered the gold standards for diagnosing autism. Autism has always been around, but it was not until the mid-1940s that Leo Kanner in the United States and Hans Asperger in Austria, both physicians, independently described children with what we now recognize as autism.

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

Donald T. was not like other 5-year-old boys. Leo Kanner knew that the moment he read the 33-page letter from Donaldʼs father that described the boy in obsessive detail as “happiest when he was alone… drawing into a shell and living within himself… oblivious to everything around him.”