Individuals with autism have multiple mutations in a pathway that functions in the mitochondria, the energy center of the cell, according to a study published 27 April in the European Journal of Human Genetics. They also have higher-than-average numbers of variants in pathways involved in metabolism, gene expression and the regulation of cell division.

Autism is diagnosed based on the severity and variety of its symptoms. This makes it very difficult to diagnose and easy to confuse with other disorders, such as language delay and intellectual disability, cautions Isabelle Rapin.

MeCP2, the protein that’s missing or mutated in Rett syndrome, is crucial for remodeling neural circuits in response to vision, according to a study published in April in Neuron.

Genetic screening of children with autism is critical to designing more effective interventions and treatment, says a pediatrician.

Speech-generating devices are a beneficial intervention for people with autism who cannot speak or sign, according to two studies published in the past few months.

Individuals with intellectual disability are more likely than controls to have harmful mutations in autism candidate genes, according to a study published 11 March in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

A new method can distinguish between sub-regions of the amygdala, the deep nub of tissue that is involved in emotion processing and that shows abnormal activity in people with autism, according to a study published in the June issue of NeuroImage.

Adults with autism get better at recognizing faces after they are trained to observe faces as a whole, instead of focusing on individual features, according to a study published 12 April in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Teenage boys with Asperger syndrome with higher-than-average scores on tests of abstract reasoning fare worse than controls on short-term memory and ability to filter out distractions.

Mice lacking CNTNAP2, a gene linked to autism and language impairment, show behaviors and brain abnormalities that reflect those seen in people with disorder, according to new findings presented Thursday at the International Meeting for Autism Research in San Diego.