Restricted behaviors in autism represent a genetic link with inattention and hyperactivity in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, say Tinca Polderman and Henrik Larsson.

As the number of autism rodent models climbs, it is a good time for the field to step back and consider the best practices for assessing autism-like symptoms in rodents, says Jacqueline Crawley.

People on the autism spectrum have an impaired sense of time that is possibly linked to a poor working memory.
 

Doctors in European countries prescribe more medications to people with autism than do doctors in Asian countries, reports a study of 30 countries, published 3 June in Autism Research.

Nearly 40 percent of people with Down syndrome also meet the criteria for an autism spectrum disorder, suggests a U.K. study of nearly 500 children, published in Autism Research.

There are no available medications for treating autism’s core symptoms, but there are several candidates in clinical trials. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele describes the factors researchers must take into account when developing drugs for the disorder.

People with autism react to stimuli at an uneven pace, sometimes responding rapidly and sometimes after a lag, but only when the group does not exclude the subset of individuals who also have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a meta-analysis published 13 March in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Roughly one-third of children with fragile X syndrome also have an autism diagnosis. Studies published in the past few months, however, suggest that the set of autism-like symptoms seen in people with fragile X syndrome may only resemble autism superficially.

Risperidone, the first drug approved for children with autism and the most widely used, improves some children’s behavior but can have severe side effects, suggests an informal analysis of the drug’s use. 

Among the younger siblings of children with autism who do not have the disorder themselves, more than one-quarter show developmental delays at their first birthday, according to a study published in April.