Infants with fragile X syndrome spend more time looking at a toy before switching their attention elsewhere than do healthy controls, according to a study published 1 July in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Cognitive traits associated with autism may have helped our ancestors survive, according to a fascinating new study. But those traits are no longer an advantage.

A virtual reality system equipped with an eye-tracking device helps teenagers with autism learn to engage with others, according to a study published 23 May.

A review article published earlier this year in Progress in Brain Research suggests that scientists may have been too quick to explain away the results of eye-tracking studies.

Of 72 newly elected members of the National Academy of Sciences, 7 work either directly on autism or in related areas, illustrating the growing intellectual breadth and depth of the field.

Teenagers with autism look at faces in pictures a little later than controls do, even when the faces are the most striking part of the image, according to a study published in November in Neuropsychologia. They are as likely as healthy controls to look at other prominent aspects of an image, however.

Teenagers with autism are less efficient at rapidly shifting their eye gaze — an indicator of motor ability — compared with either typically developing controls or adolescents with Asperger syndrome, according to a study published in November in Cerebellum.

Children with autism are less interested in watching an activity, such as a parent and child putting together a puzzle, compared with typically developing controls, according to a study published in November in Brain Research.

An asocial inbred mouse strain called BTBR may show behaviors associated with autism, such as avoiding eye gaze and forming an attachment to objects, researchers reported Monday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

A new brain imaging technique may provide a powerful tool for understanding social interaction, and how it is disrupted in conditions such as autism, according to a poster presented Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.