Doctors and scientists should consider sleep problems an integral part of autism and begin to study them in more rigorous ways.

Children with autism are more likely than typical children to have had problems falling asleep as infants, and to have shown brain overgrowth.

Toddlers who sleep poorly or overreact or underreact to sensory stimuli have more repetitive behaviors and other autism traits later in childhood.

Analyzing five sleep-related factors reveals associations between sleep troubles in autistic children and problem behaviors during the day.

Melatonin appears to be safe for long-term use in autistic children who have difficulty sleeping.

Many people with autism have difficulty falling and staying asleep, but there may be ways to help them.

Cardiac activity could reveal autism’s physiology and confirm a hunch many clinicians share: that people with autism experience great stress.

Sleeping zebrafish show two patterns of neuronal activity that are analogous to those in people.

Sleep problems may contribute to autism’s underlying biology — a connection that scientists can study in animal models.

Mikle South spends his days teaching classes, studying the relationship between anxiety and autism, and coping with living in a conservative state.