We are on the verge of a seismic shift in the definition of autism spectrum disorders, says David Skuse. Under proposed guidelines for autism diagnosis, the canard that most people with the disorder cannot speak, or have such disordered language that they cannot sustain a conversation, has been abandoned.

Evidence for the benefit of behavioral treatments for autism is modest at best, according to a systematic review published 1 November in Pediatrics.

Which test a clinician uses to diagnose a child with autism may determine whether that child meets the criteria proposed in the newest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Girls are less likely to be diagnosed with autism than boys are, unless they also have intellectual or behavioral problems, according to a study published 26 June in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Women who have intelligence quotients in the normal range may nevertheless have fragile X syndrome, often described as the most common inherited form of mental retardation, according to a case study published 27 June in Molecular Autism.

Early intensive behavioral therapy could save more than a million dollars over the lifetime of an individual with autism.

Studies of autism prevalence should screen a representative sample of all individuals in the population, even those with no indications of the disorder, says epidemiologist Young-Shin Kim.

A high intelligence quotient, a good understanding of social skills, and aggressiveness may all contribute to anxiety in children with autism, according to a study published 14 March in The Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The largest brain imaging study ever performed has identified candidate genes that influence brain size and general intelligence, according to research published 15 April in Nature Genetics.

Children with autism don’t follow certain grammatical rules, according to one of the few studies of the disorder from the field of linguistics.