With the right incentive, such as winning a prize, children with autism do fairly well at inferring the thoughts and beliefs of others, according to a study published in the May issue of Developmental Science.

There is little to fear in the definition of autism in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and a lot to recommend it, says Simon Baron-Cohen.

A handful of long-term studies, each including up to several hundred participants, have followed people with autism for close to two decades. As the children in some of these studies come of age, researchers are piecing together the disorder’s trajectories.

A rare birth defect offers a unique perspective on the connectivity theory of autism. Up to one-third of those missing all or part of the corpus callosum, a thick tract of nerve fibers connecting the left and right brain hemispheres, meet the diagnostic criteria for autism, several recent studies suggest.

People with autism, unlike controls, do not show distinct patterns of brain activity when evaluating scenarios that require them to infer others’ thoughts, according to two studies published in the past two months.

Husband and wife research team Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl have shown that learning is a fundamentally social process, beginning in early infancy.

Researchers are digging into the myriad causes of autism to refine its definition and find elusive biological signatures.

People with autism don’t look at others’ eyes or mimic their actions in everyday life, but they can do these things when asked to, according a review published 7 September in Brain and Development. 

Trouble with theory of mind, or the ability to infer what other people think or believe, is one of the most well-known deficits in autism. Two new studies show that theory of mind is also lacking in people with autism-related syndromes.

A new way to evaluate theory of mind, the ability to imagine what others are thinking or feeling, shows promise for teasing apart the different aspects of this complex mental process, according to a poster presented Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.