Children with autism are often clumsy, physically awkward or uncoordinated. This understudied and nearly ubiquitous feature has researchers contemplating a new idea: Could motor problems be one source of autism’s social difficulties?
Children missing a stretch of DNA on chromosome 16 show worsening motor and social skills in the first eight years of life; those with an extra copy of the region do not show this decline.
Girls with autism may not get a diagnosis because certain features of the condition look different in them than they do in boys.
The activity of a set of proteins in the blood may distinguish people with autism from those without the condition.
Infants who are later diagnosed with autism show inconsistent patterns of brain waves in response to the same sound.
Drugs that alter the activity of vasopressin, a hormone involved in social behavior, may improve social abilities in people with autism.
Children born to parents who are unusually young or old stand an increased chance of having features of autism or other psychiatric conditions.
Parents of children with autism report improvements in their children’s behaviors when they participate in a study, even when the children are not receiving a treatment.
Children with autism who have both severe repetitive behaviors and sensory sensitivities tend to have had unusually structured nerve tracts in infancy.
Many children with autism who take antipsychotic medications do not receive behavioral therapy.
