OBJECTIVE To explore variation among the 50 US states in the administrative prevalence of autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) and factors associated with that variation. DESIGN This survey study used secondary data from all 50 states obtained from the US Department of Education, Washington, DC, and the American Board of Pediatrics, Chapel Hill, NC. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE The outcome of interes...

BACKGROUND Recent research has indicated that autism is not a discrete disorder and that family members of autistic probands have an increased likelihood of exhibiting autistic symptoms with a wide range of severity, often below the threshold for a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder. OBJECTIVE To examine the distribution and genetic structure of autistic traits in the general population...

There is a wide spectrum of conditions in which deficiencies of highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFA) appear to play a role (Glen et al, 1999). This includes atopic (allergic) conditions such as eczema and asthma as well as psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and depression. The focus here is on the role of HUFA in three common developmental disorders of learning and behaviour dyslexia,...

INTRODUCTION The reported prevalence of autism spectrum disorders in people with epilepsy ranges from 15% to 47%. Despite the high comorbidity, there has been a lack of systematic studies of autistic characteristics in epilepsy. Little is known about the relationship of epilepsy to the core characteristics of autism. The aim of this research was to measure autistic traits and characteristics in...

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders are claimed to show a local cognitive bias, termed "weak central coherence", which manifests in a reduced influence of contextual information on linguistic processing. Here, we investigated whether this bias might also be demonstrated by individuals who exhibit sub-clinical levels of autistic traits, as has been found for other aspects of autistic cogn...

Heterogeneity in phenotypic presentation of Autism spectrum disorders has been cited as one explanation for the difficulty in pinpointing specific genes involved in autism. Recent studies have attempted to reduce the "noise" in genetic and other biological data by reducing the phenotypic heterogeneity of the sample population. The current study employs multiple clustering algorithms on 123 item...

Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS) is an autosomal recessive condition caused by a defect in cholesterol synthesis. Affected children often have malformations and mental retardation. Autistic behaviors also are evident. The purpose of the present study was to determine the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in children with SLOS. Fourteen children, 3-16 years old, were evaluated usin...

Sensory functioning has long been considered crucial in the life of people with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) (Gillberg, C., & Coleman, M. (1992). The Biology of Autistic Syndromes (2nd ed.). London: Mac Keith press.) However, much of the research is methodologically flawed and based on child populations and adults' retrospective accounts (O'Neill, M.C 1995). Sensory-perceptual abnormalitie...

Autism is a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder with a polygenetic predisposition that seems to be triggered by multiple environmental factors during embryonic and/or early postnatal life. While significant advances have been made in identifying the neuronal structures and cells affected, a unifying theory that could explain the manifold autistic symptoms has still not emerged. Based on rec...

Little is known about the prevalence of violence and autistic spectrum disorders. This article reviews findings of current research on Asperger's disorder and violence. Criteria for diagnosing Asperger's disorder are given. Three cases are presented in which defendants with diagnosed Asperger's disorder were charged with murder. Specific symptoms in this disorder are discussed as they relate to...