As many as 700,000 adults in the U.S. with a disability like autism live with parents or another family member who is 60 or older. What happens when those caregivers are gone? One sibling confronts her past and likely future. By Ciara O’Rourke.

Decisions are based on the way choices are framed. This is because people use emotion when making decisions, leading to some options feeling more desirable than others. For example, when given £50, we are more likely to gamble the money if we stand to lose £30 than if we are going to keep £20. Although both options are mathematically equivalent, the thought of losing money evokes a powerful emotional response and we are more likely to gamble to try to avoid losing money.

A researcher in Israel is preparing to study the potential beneficial effects of cannabidiol (CBD) on children and adults with autism.

An autistic boy has received tens of thousands of birthday cards from strangers all over the world, after his mother made a public appeal. Karen Jones, 49, from Exmouth, posted a request for help on Facebook after her son Ollie told her he loved opening cards and had made his own to open on his 15th birthday. Writing on a community page, she said: “He’s just told me he love opening cards to [the] extent he’s made himself a couple.”

Children use their sense of time to guess when the school bell will ring, when to pause while chatting with a friend, and how long it typically takes Dad to buy groceries. A good sense of time makes life less unpredictable, and may also smooth out some social interactions. Most children get better at estimating time as they grow. They learn by averaging their experiences — for instance, previous trips to a supermarket or conversational pauses. Some children have an innate sense of time and rely less on this imprecise averaging tactic.

July 12, 2016

Paracetamol, commonly known as Panadol and Tylenol, has long been considered a safe medication for pregnant women to take for pain, fever, and even the flu. But a new study suggests that the risk of children experiencing autism spectrum disorder symptoms can be traced back to their mom’s use of OTC painkillers. A team of researchers in Spain studied 2,644 mother-child pairs, starting with pregnancy and going through the child’s fifth birthday. Women were asked if they ever took paracetamol during pregnancy, and if so, if their use was sporadic or persistent.

Investigating the genetics of SPD and how it compares to autism and ADHD. While these are all distinct diagnostic labels, they apply to groups of symptoms that often overlap. It’s easy to see how a child who can’t concentrate at school because her SPD means she’s focusing on the clicking of a fan or the scratch of her neighbor’s pencil might get labelled as having attention deficit disorder; or how a child who wants to run around endlessly because he craves sensory input about the location of his body parts in space might get labelled as ‘hyperactive’; or how a child who cannot properly process visual information about a face might struggle

My son was seven when a pediatrician diagnosed him on the autism scale – but really, we had known for years. There was his limited vocabulary – a handful of words by the time he was three, and a habit of mixing up letters or relying on stock sentences. He found it hard to get on with other children at his nursery, and later, when he went to a much bigger school, it was obvious the experience was terrifyingly loud, hectic and incomprehensible to him. Meanwhile, if there was something he was interested in, whether it was Peppa Pig or Superman, he would...

A recent viral video is putting those who don’t believe in vaccines into question, and it’s all thanks to a pre-teen.

In the role-playing farming simulator Stardew Valley, building routine is a tool that helps you progress further, and I draw comparisons between this gameplay style and autism.

For the first 14 and a half years of Gordy’s life, Evan and Dara Baylinson had no reason to think their son could comprehend anything they said.

For a long time, it was thought that people with autism spectrum disorder lacked emotion, that even the higher-functioning among them navigated the world like logical robots oblivious to “real” feelings. More recently, research has shown their social issues are more likely to stem from difficulty expressing emotion or reading the emotions of others. Though he wasn’t diagnosed with autism until he was 40, John Elder Robison felt isolated and disconnected throughout his entire...

Two separate groups of researchers have uncovered similar techniques for figuring out whether children have autism that's quick, cheap, easy, and highly accurate: tracking the way their eyes move using a webcam and software. The new procedures could ultimately lead to an earlier and more accurate diagnosis for affected patients. Until now, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been identified using parental reports, clinical observations and interviews with the children themselves.

Two separate groups of researchers have uncovered similar techniques for figuring out whether children have autism that's quick, cheap, easy, and highly accurate: tracking the way their eyes move using a webcam and software. The new procedures...

A writer’s reflections on the pain of “passing” for neurotypical. By M.Nicole.R.Wildhood.

New research suggests the disorder often looks different in females, many of whom are being misdiagnosed and missing out on the support they need

He’s still searching.​ By Danielle Bacher.

In some cases, clinicians recommend special diets; in others, they're instigated by parents eager to find anything that may help their child.

Scientists in China say they used genetic engineering to create monkeys with a version of autism, an achievement that could make it easier to test treatments but that raises thorny practical and ethical questions over how useful such animal models will be. Neuroscientist Zilong Qiu of the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences says his team has generated more than a dozen monkeys with a genetic error that in human children causes a rare syndrome whose symptoms...