Diagnosing autism is an evolving science but a crucial first step to understanding the disorder.
A genome-wide association study has identified risk factors for Asperger syndrome, some of which overlap with chromosomal regions implicated in autism, according to a study in the December issue of Autism Research.
One of the first large-scale, ongoing studies documenting the symptoms of Angelman syndrome — a neurological disorder with features similar to autism — is calling into question some of the so-called characteristic symptoms of the syndrome.
The brains of people with autism show three distinct periods of abnormal development — overgrowth in infancy, prematurely arrested growth in childhood, and shrinking between adolescence and middle age — according to a study in Brain Research.
As genetic testing becomes routine, people are likely to face difficult choices about parenthood.
Infant siblings of children with autism tend to lag behind their peers at the earliest stages of language development before catching up at around 12 months of age.
A man’s risk of fathering a child with autism begins to rise at age 30 and significantly increases after age 50, according to a report published online 30 November in Molecular Psychiatry.
Autism is popularly viewed as a disorder of childhood, not old age, but that doesn’t mean senior citizens are unaffected.
Children with autism understand fewer words than their verbal ability would suggest, according to a study published in December in the International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders.
As autism rates rise, so do health care costs for the disorder. Despite federal programs, some children with autism are falling through the cracks in the health care system.
A new drug appears to relieve symptoms of fragile X syndrome by blocking the over-production of a key protein in a subset of people with the disorder, according to a 6 January study in Science Translational Medicine.
