Spectrum: Autism Research News

Men with autism may respond differently to human odors — and the social signals that they contain — than do their neurotypical peers.

Adults who have characteristics of autism are about three times as likely as their peers to not identify as heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual.

Children with autism do not show the burst of vocabulary growth that usually accompanies learning to walk.

Young children with autism sustain injuries primarily because of co-occurring attention deficit.

Male mice with a genetic variant tied to autism may have learning difficulties that females with the variant do not.

A drug that has shown promise for treating fragile X syndrome may ease features of another condition associated with autism.

Some drugs used to treat epilepsy may harm children who are exposed to them in the womb or through breast milk.

A drug used to treat type 2 diabetes reverses behavioral and brain abnormalities in a mouse model of fragile X syndrome.

The jury is still out on autism screening, technology to track wandering children is under attack, and a sensitive Santa Claus sees children on the spectrum.

Some say a focus on basic neuroscience is crushing clinical research, a gene database gets a big upgrade, and Autism Speaks revises its goals.