Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can demonstrate feeding problems, food refusal, and limited food preferences from infancy, but energy intake and growth are not affected...

Rubicon winner Dalila Pinto discovered a copying error in the DNA of trial subjects who suffered from autism or a similar condition. Some segments of their DNA were copied either once too often or missed out of the copying process. This is a highly promising result from the world's largest investigation into autism. The top journal Nature placed the results online on 9 June...

The Los Angeles Times' Blog: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger moved Wednesday to implement a major element of the new national healthcare overhaul, seeking a $1-million federal grant to strengthen the state's review of health insurance rates. Much of the money would pay for actuaries to evaluate premium hikes sought by insurers. ...

A York University study has shown for the first time how the drug misoprostol, which has been linked to neurodevelopmental defects associated with autism, interferes with neuronal cell function. It is an important finding because misoprostol is similar in structure to naturally-occurring prostaglandins, which are the key signaling molecules produced by fatty acids in the brain...

Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Pediatrics (OHSU, Portland, Oregon) is seeking roughly 50-100 volunteer families to participate in a vitamin D study. The goal of the study is to find out whether giving Vitamin D to the pregnant mother, who already has had at least one previous child with autism, can prevent the recurrence of autism in the newborn sibling...

MinnPost: "As expected, Gov. Tim Pawlenty has declined the opportunity for Minnesota to get an early shot at expanding Medicaid eligibility. The federal health plan calls for all states to expand Medicaid eligibility to low-income adults without children in 2014, but Minnesota was among a few states offered a chance to do it earlier...

Cellceutix Corporation (OTCBB: CTIX) is pleased to announce that they have completed another study in the research of KM-391, their novel compound being developed to treat the core symptoms of autism. Cellceutix is pioneering research in autism treatments and has been making solid progress with pre-clinical research as announced in previous press releases...

Mothers of children with autism see their careers disproportionally affected as they confront greater demands on their time, inflexible workplaces and increased medical costs, according to a new study by researchers at Washington State University Vancouver...

A Scientific American article asks, "What if Vitamin D Deficiency is a Cause of Autism?" (1) How could vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy cause autism, a genetic disease? Indeed, five researchers at Harvard, led by Dr. Dennis Kinney, recently endorsed and then modified the vitamin D theory of autism.(2) Very recently, Dr...

Young people with autism are often "lost in transition" and not diagnosed or treated effectively as teenagers, an eminent neuropsychiatrist has said. They end up being excluded from school, or never going to school, and rarely come to the attention of psychiatrists...

The Autism Treatment Center of America has released a comprehensive, updated version of The Son-Rise Program Developmental Model. The model helps parents and caretakers of children with Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders with: 1. Measuring and formulating a clear baseline of a child's social ability, through the use of the model's assessment guide. 2...

In the ongoing effort to understand the growing prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) nationwide, the University of Utah has received a $2.4 million, four-year grant to estimate the number of Utah 8-year-olds with ASDs and other developmental disabilities. The University is one of 11 national centers awarded a total of $5 million in grants by the U.S...

An outreach program at the Riley Hospital for Children Christian Sarkine Autism Treatment Center has been designated as one of six resource centers of the Indiana Resource Network established by the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE). HANDS in Autism is the only program focusing on autism named to the Indiana Resource Network (IRN)...

The first "test tube baby" was born in 1978. With advances in reproductive science, an estimated one percent of all American babies are now born each year through in vitro fertilization (IVF). But IVF and other assisted fertility treatments may be solving one problem by creating another, suggests new evidence from Tel Aviv University. In a recent study, Dr...

The Autism Genome Project, a new international study published in the June 9th edition of the journal Nature, demonstrates that people with autism may have differences in their genes that are unique to each person. This Canadian led study is funded by public and private partners including major awards and support from Genome Canada, thru the Ontario Genomics Institute...

Deciphering the functions of multiple rare genes may be at the core of understanding the genetic factors that cause autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), according to a new study published June 9 in the journal Nature by dozens of top autism researchers around the world, including Yale Child Study Center Director Fred R. Volkmar, M.D...

University of Illinois at Chicago researchers are part of an international consortium working with Autism Speaks, the world's largest autism science and advocacy organization, which today reports new autism genetic discoveries. The results, from the second phase of the collaborative Autism Genome Project, are published in the June 10 issue of the journal Nature...

Mount Sinai researchers and the Autism Genome Project Consortium (AGP) announced that they have identified new autism susceptibility genes that may lead to the development of new treatment approaches...

The world's largest DNA scan for familial autism has uncovered new genetic changes in autistic children that are often not present in their parents. Identified in less than 1 percent of the population, these rare variants occur nearly 20 percent more in autistic children...

An international consortium of researchers from more than 70 universities, including the University of Utah, has reported that a study of nearly 2,300 people supports the growing consensus that autism is caused in part by rare genetic changes called copy number variants (CNVs)...