Boys who have autism-like social deficits at 2 years of age retain about the same level of social impairment when they reach age 20.

The largest and most ambitious genome-sequencing project to date aims to identify rare variants and study their association to disease traits in 10,000 people.

The handful of studies of autism in Africa suggest that only the most severely affected children are seen in clinics.

Collapsing the three core domains of autism — impairments in social interaction, communication deficits, and repetitive and restricted behaviors — into two makes no difference in the accuracy of diagnosis, according to a statistical analysis published 20 August in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

New Jersey has the highest rates of autism in the U.S., but prevalence is highest in neighborhoods where annual incomes exceed $90,000.

Screening for metabolic disorders in children with autism is not cost-effective, according to a study published 7 July in PLoS One. The researchers argue instead for careful individual clinical analysis.

Children who have more than one older sibling with autism have a one in three chance of developing the disorder themselves, according to a study published today in Pediatrics. The risk is higher for boys: Even if they have only one older sibling with autism, they are almost three times more likely than girls with the same family history to develop the disorder.

A complicated interplay between a certain genetic variant and autism, schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis adds one more intriguing correlation to the growing list of autism risk factors.

Taking antidepressants while pregnant may slightly increase the risk of having a child with autism, reports a study published 4 July in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Women with a mild version of primary ovarian insufficiency, a disorder that mimics the symptoms of menopause, should be tested for a mutation that can lead to fragile X syndrome, according to a study published 15 June in Human Reproduction.