Science News About Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Susan A. Daniels, Ph.D. has been appointed as the HHS National Autism Coordinator and Director of the Office of National Autism Coordination (ONAC).

Research supported by NIMH suggests that children’s health records may yield some promising insights that could improve the accuracy of early autism screening.

An NIMH-supported study shows that preference for geometric images may be robust enough to serve as a biomarker for identifying some young children with autism.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is pleased to announce the winners of 2022 Speaking Up About Mental Health! This Is My Story essay contest.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded a total of $100 million over the next five years to support nine Autism Centers of Excellence. This endeavor funds large research projects to understand and develop interventions for autism spectrum disorder.

In an NIMH-supported study, researchers found that toddlers respond to emotionally expressive speech in different ways, and these varied responses are linked with their social, linguistic, and cognitive abilities.

An NIMH-supported study shows that incorporating a multistage screening process for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) into federally funded early intervention services may reduce disparities in early ASD diagnosis.

A recent study of gene networks may hold some promising clues about shared mechanisms underlying autism spectrum disorder and congenital heart disease, two physiologically distinct disorders that often co-occur.

NIMH researchers examine what people with ASD and people without ASD look at when viewing a social scene.

National Autism Coordinator Ann E. Wagner, Ph.D., will retire from federal service on June 30, 2021—Susan A. Daniels, Ph.D., will serve as Acting National Autism Coordinator beginning on July 1, 2021, and until a permanent successor is named.

A mobile app was successful at distinguishing toddlers diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from typically developing toddlers based on their eye movements while watching videos, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

NIMH, along with other NIH Institutes, is supporting the ABC-CT project, a multisite study that aims to test and refine biomarkers that can be used as objective measures of social impairment for children with autism in clinical trials, leading to more predictive and personalized treatment.

NIMH, along with other NIH Institutes, is supporting the goal of identifying autism in the first year of life by funding projects that seek to seek to translate findings related to early-emerging signs of autism into practical ASD screening tools that can be implemented in the general population and community settings.

Researchers were able to identify different types of rare genetic variations associated with autism spectrum disorder by analyzing data shared via the NIMH-funded Autism Sequencing Consortium.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded more than four million dollars in FY 2019 to support seven research projects aimed at developing and validating screening tools to detect signs of autism spectrum disorder in the first year of life.

A new study in rodents has demonstrated, for the first time, that the brain’s cerebellum plays a role in controlling reward and social preference behavior—findings that shed light on the brain circuits critical to the affective and social dysfunction seen across multiple psychiatric disorders.