There are several reasons why social communication disorder should not have been included in the DSM-5, says Helen Tager-Flusberg.

Listen to our virtual roundtable on the DSM-5 criteria for autism, featuring Thomas Insel, Catherine Lord and Helen Tager-Flusberg.

On Saturday, the American Psychiatric Association released the DSM-5, the long-awaited new version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Draft diagnostic guidelines are raising concerns that mild forms of the disorder may no longer be recognized.

Loss of one copy of TBR1, an autism-linked gene involved in fetal brain development, leads to brain malformations, according to a study published in the September issue of Molecular Syndromology.

We are on the verge of a seismic shift in the definition of autism spectrum disorders, says David Skuse. Under proposed guidelines for autism diagnosis, the canard that most people with the disorder cannot speak, or have such disordered language that they cannot sustain a conversation, has been abandoned.

Girls with Asperger syndrome are diagnosed, on average, two years later than boys, and the delay is even worse among adults with classic autism, according to a large study in the Netherlands published 22 September in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Mutations in SHANK3, a leading autism risk gene, occur in roughly two percent of individuals with autism spectrum disorders, according to a study published 15 August in the European Journal of Human Genetics.

The proposed changes to the diagnostic criteria for autism are unlikely to exclude many people currently diagnosed with Asperger syndrome or pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified, according to a large analysis published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Symptoms associated with a deletion of the 15q13.3 chromosomal region could result from the loss of a single gene, CHRNA7, according to a study published 9 July in Clinical Genetics.