Rodents that lack the gene form too many connections between brain neurons and have difficulty learning.

A nonspeaking young man dreams of autistic civil rights. The documentary film DEEJ with its insider view of autism, challenges us all to live inclusion.

The UK’s first “quiet hour” is to be launched across multiple retailers nationwide to create a more autism-friendly shopping experience. In a major boost to the National Autistic Society’s awareness campaign, shopping centre owner Intu has partnered with the charity to hold an autism-friendly hour across its 14 centres this October.

Honey bees that consistently fail to respond to obvious social cues share something fundamental with autistic humans, researchers report in a new study. Genes most closely associated with autism spectrum disorders in humans are regulated differently in unresponsive honey bees than in their more responsive nest mates, the study found.

A boy with autism celebrated his 11th birthday with cards sent from all over the world after his mum made an appeal on social media. Lisa Jackson from Southsea, asked people to send a card to her son Ben because no-one came to a previous birthday party. Dedicated trolleys were set up at Portsmouth sorting office to handle the tens of thousands of cards

When non-white autistic students get in trouble, schools have a track record of escalating tensions and treating it as a criminal matter. Two recent cases in Orange County, Florida, help illustrate the problem.

The tech industry is full of introverts and other people who'd rather talk to a computer than another human being. But even brilliant, cubicle-dwelling introverts do have to talk to humans once in a while. Herein: how to get out of your own head and how a boss can help drag you out.

On paper, the Odd Fellows, a national fraternal organization, loved Niko Boskovic. The Portland, Oregon, teen’s essay on the history of Ukraine was thoughtful and well-written, his letters of recommendation praised him, and his interviews with local lodge members went well. Boskovic was the “clear winner” of the local Portland lodge’s essay contest, which meant he had earned a trip to visit the United Nations, according to The Oregonian.

He was the training director of one of St. Paul’s largest security companies — a man certified on when and how to use Mace. Which left police mystified as to why Timothy Knutsen would pepper spray an autistic man in the face for eating a cookie from a Cub Foods sampler tray. Knutsen, 53, of St. Paul, has been charged with two counts of fifth-degree assault and disorderly conduct for an incident in Roseville last month.

John Benjamin Haygood was slouched in a chair with his hand over his eyes, a video shows. A school resource officer at Okeechobee Achievement Academy in Florida stood over the 10-year-old boy as his mother asked: “Does he have the same rights as an adult?” Then, the officer reached for the young boy’s wrists. “I don’t want to be touched,” John Benjamin said, throwing his hands in the air. “I don’t like to be touched.”

It's becoming harder to find tech staff, particularly in traditional non-geeky organizations. Here are new places to look and reasons why a more diverse workforce is worth seeking out.

The President-Elect of the United States of America has said he believes that vaccines are harmful, and has repeatedly and erroneously claimed that they cause autism. This is untrue and it's dangerous. Back in 1998, British medical researcher Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the health journal The Lancet which claimed to show a link between children who were given the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine with autism and bowel disease.

The study might also help us to identify the prodigy gene, should it exist.    

Kara Zartler’s life began too soon. Along with her twin sister, she was born at 26 weeks. At 1 pound 12 ounces, she weighed slightly less than the healthy Keeley. Then, 10 hours into life, Kara suffered a brain hemorrhage. Seventeen years later, she’s lucky to be alive. But she has cerebral palsy and severe autism, which in her case causes compulsive self-injurious behavior that began with she was 4 years old.

Evaluating the strength of connections in the brain is one avenue researchers have been exploring to help identify children at risk for autism spectrum disorder earlier in life. Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, with colleagues from the multicenter Infant Brain Imaging Study (IBIS) network, have found associations between brain connectivity and a key social behavior that is a central feature of autism. If it becomes possible to identify children with autism spectrum disorder earlier...

Brain scans can detect autism long before any symptoms start to emerge, say scientists. The earliest that children tend to be diagnosed at present is at the age of two, although it is often later. The study, published in the journal Nature, showed the origins of autism are much earlier than that - in the first year of life. The findings could lead to an early test and even therapies that work while the brain is more malleable.

The discovery could lead to better tests and therapies for children with autism.

Children with autism may benefit from fecal transplants -- a method of introducing donated healthy microbes into people with gastrointestinal disease to rebalance the gut.

Campaigners and parents of children with autism have called for retailers to follow the example of a major toy chain after it held a “quiet hour” to cater for those on the autistic spectrum. Toys R Us today opened its doors an hour early after adapting its UK stores with measures tailored to meet the needs of children with autism, including dimmed fluorescent lighting and a ban on music and in-store announcements.