The severity of core autism symptoms in young children goes hand in hand with the degree of the children’s difficulty with motor tasks.
 

A teenage girl with Rett syndrome has a mutation in WFR45, a gene that is mutated in people who abruptly lose motor and mental skills in adulthood, according to a study published 13 March in the Journal of Human Genetics.

Many of the children with autism known to have outgrown their diagnosis received intense behavioral therapy for long periods of time during childhood, reports a study published in May in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.
 

Researchers have linked defects in the dopamine brain circuit to behaviors of a new mouse model of the 16p11.2 deletion. In a study in the 16 May Cell Reports, they suggest that the mutation alters the brain’s regulation of dopamine and may be responsible for behavioral problems, including autism.

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.

Triggering neuron activity with flashes of light allows scientists to tie behaviors in fruit fly larvae to specific neuron groups, reports a study published 25 April in Science. The study catalogs the associations between neurons and the movements they control.

Adults with autism may suffer from various health problems, ranging from psychiatric conditions to motor symptoms that resemble Parkinson’s disease, according to two studies presented Thursday at the 2014 International Meeting for Autism Research in Atlanta.

Proteins that help guide neurons to their correct destination in the brain may be involved in autism, says Christopher Cowan.

Children with autism can be classified into one of four groups based on how they respond to stimuli such as taste, sound and even the orientations of their bodies in space, according to a study published 17 March in Autism Research.

By age 2, children with autism show difficulty with movement, communication, emotional control and problem-solving, distinct from the symptoms of children with other disorders, reports a study published in February.