A cancer drug shows promise as a treatment for Angelman syndrome, according to a study published today in Nature.

Individuals with autism and those with specific language impairment have similar language deficits, but show differences in connectivity between language-related regions on structural brain scans, according to a study published 2 November in Cerebral Cortex.

Individuals with autism-linked variants of a language gene use regions in the brain’s right hemisphere, rather than the left, to process language, according to a study published 10 October in The American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B.

Duplication or deletion of four genes within a large chromosomal region linked to Angelman syndrome and autism could lead to developmental disability or language delay, according to a study published in the October issue of Human Genetics.

The language deficit in autism is complex and diverse. With a no-nonsense and thoughtful approach, Helen Tager-Flusberg has devoted her career to sorting it all out.

Toddlers with autism who have larger-than-normal heads are also taller and weigh more than controls, according to a study published in October in Archives of General Psychiatry.

Studying bird species such as the zebra finch can help researchers understand language difficulties in autism, Stephanie White told SFARI.org in a video interview at the 2011 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Male zebra finches have high levels of contactin associated protein-like 2 (CNTNAP2), a protein that has been linked to autism and language disorders, in a key song-related area of their brains, according to unpublished research presented in a poster session Sunday at the 2011 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Non-verbal children with autism show structural differences in key language areas of the brain compared with controls, according to a poster presented Saturday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Children with autism who receive intensive behavioral interventions of various types show the most improvement on tests of social and communicative abilities, according to a study in the January-March 2012 issue of Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders.