The National Institute of Mental Health is moving away from research proposals that hew closely to clinical diagnoses such as autism spectrum disorder. The announcement has struck many autism researchers as an attack on the already-controversial new diagnostic criteria for the disorder.

Most children with autism who have language delay at age 4 are able to speak later in childhood, according to a study published in the April issue of Pediatrics.

Intellectual disability, autism, epilepsy and schizophrenia should be considered part of a spectrum of developmental brain dysfunction, says David Ledbetter.

Children with autism are more likely to attempt suicide than their typical peers are, particularly if they are depressed or living in low-income families, says a January study in Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Researchers must use better measures to show that experimental and control groups are well matched, says Jon Brock.

In families that have more than one child with autism, children who are born later have lower intelligence scores than their older siblings do, according to research published 11 November in PLoS ONE.

We know little about autism past adolescence, but a well-studied generation of children with autism will change that.

Men with autism struggle with attention to detail and dexterity, according to a study published 17 October in PLoS One. Men and women with the disorder both have trouble with social skills, however.

Children with a deletion in the 22q11.2 chromosomal region have one of two distinct sets of symptoms, and only one of those is associated with autism, according to a study published 28 August in Research in Developmental Disabilities.

Two new studies that follow the development of children with autism suggest that distinct subgroups of the disorder exist early on, and that the severity of symptoms in most of these children remains stable over time.