Autism News and Research

Latest Autism News and Research

Trump policies at odds with ‘make America healthy again’ push

In his March address to Congress, President Donald Trump honored a Texas boy diagnosed with brain cancer. Amid bipartisan applause, he vowed to drive down childhood cancer rates through his "Make America Healthy Again" initiative.

7 May 2025

Mental health diagnoses rise sharply among publicly insured children

In the first comprehensive investigation into the trends of mental health diagnoses among children with public health insurance, a new study reports the percentage of mental health and neurodevelopmental disorder diagnoses increased substantially in the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic.

6 May 2025

Study shows the connection between language disorders and handedness

Linguistic symptoms and an onset early in life: Disorders to which this applies are frequently associated with left-handedness resp. mixed-handedness.

5 May 2025

Spatial working memory remains stable in older adults with autistic traits

There is no difference over time in the spatial working memory of older people who have autistic traits and those who are neurotypical, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.

1 May 2025

Study links impaired synaptic pruning to autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition in which affected individuals experience difficulties in social communication and exhibit restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior or interests.

30 Apr 2025

Eye contact may not be a definitive marker of autism, study shows

Children with autism are believed to face difficulties in social interactions, besides also lacking the ability to be attentive while interacting with others. In fact, eye contact avoidance is a key behavioral marker in the clinical diagnosis of autism.

25 Apr 2025

Autistic traits do not impact age-related decline in spatial working memory

There is no difference over time in the spatial working memory of older people who have autistic traits and those who are neurotypical, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.

24 Apr 2025

Measles could become endemic again in the United States

Childhood vaccination rates have been falling in the United States, especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

24 Apr 2025

Measles misinformation is on the rise — and Americans are hearing it, survey finds

While the most serious measles epidemic in a decade has led to the deaths of two children and spread to 27 states with no signs of letting up, beliefs about the safety of the measles vaccine and the threat of the disease are sharply polarized, fed by the anti-vaccine views of the country's seniormost health official.

23 Apr 2025

Study reveals a molecular connection between autism and myotonic dystrophy

A recent discovery of a molecular connection between autism and myotonic dystrophy, a type of neuromuscular disease, may provide a breakthrough on how clinicians approach autism spectrum disorder.

21 Apr 2025

Researchers uncover genetic link between autism spectrum disorder and myotonic dystrophy type 1

Scientists from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and University of Las Vegas Nevada (UNLV) have uncovered a genetic link between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and a rare genetic condition called myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1).

21 Apr 2025

Neural fingerprints reveal how teamwork and deep focus interact

A collaborative study by researchers from Toyohashi University of Technology and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) introduces a groundbreaking algorithm that maps individual brain activity in a multi-dimensional space.

18 Apr 2025

New CDC report highlights changing autism trends across the U.S.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health contributed to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report examining autism among children who turned 4 and 8 years old in 2022.

17 Apr 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': On autism, it’s the secretary’s word vs. CDC’S

The secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., contradicted his agency's researchers this week with unsubstantiated or outright false claims about autism spectrum disorder and those with the condition.

17 Apr 2025

Unlocking the secrets of synaptic plasticity during learning

How do we learn something new? How do tasks at a new job, lyrics to the latest hit song or directions to a friend's house become encoded in our brains?

17 Apr 2025

How a cartoon bear revealed surprising gaps in toddler hunger awareness

Preschool children aged 3–5 successfully used the Teddy the Bear pictorial scale to rate hunger before and after meals, supporting its validity for group-level research. However, younger children, especially three-year-olds, struggled more with using the tool accurately.

17 Apr 2025

Beyond Ivy League, RFK Jr.’s NIH slashed science funding across states that backed Trump

The National Institutes of Health's sweeping cuts of grants that fund scientific research are inflicting pain almost universally across the U.S., including in most states that backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

17 Apr 2025

RFK Jr. struggles to navigate frustrated supporters and a demanding boss

After the Senate voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary, supporters of his "Make America Healthy Again" movement cheered at having a champion in the federal government.

17 Apr 2025

Researchers simulate protein structures behind learning and memory

Our brain's remarkable ability to form and store memories has long fascinated scientists, yet most of the microscopic mechanisms behind memory and learning processes remain a mystery.

16 Apr 2025

Study identifies brain area linked to social behavior and altruism

Are there areas of the brain, which regulate prosocial, altruistic behaviour? Together with colleagues from the universities in Lausanne, Utrecht and Cape Town, researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have studied a very special group of patients and established that the "basolateral amygdala" (part of the limbic system) plays an important role in this.

16 Apr 2025