IACC Releases Its Annual Summary of Advances in ASD Research on World Autism Awareness Day

Friday, April 2, 2010

In conjunction with the United Nations (UN) designated "World Autism Awareness Day" on April 2, the IACC announced its selection of twenty scientific advances in biomedical and services research for 2009. "World Autism Awareness Day," established by the UN in 2007, is meant to increase global awareness about autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and promote early diagnosis and intervention. To help recognize the importance of this day, the IACC released its annual Summary of Advances, composed of short summaries of the twenty selected research articles, each of which was considered by the committee to have advanced ASD research in a significant way in 2009. These findings give new insight into ASD, a disorder which affects 1 in 110 children in the United States and is estimated to affect millions of people internationally.

Articles selected for the 2009 IACC Summary of Advances (listed alphabetically by first author):

• Medication and parent training in children with pervasive developmental disorders and serious behavior problems: results from a randomized clinical trial – Aman, et al. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. December 2009.
• Association of family history of autoimmune diseases and autism spectrum disorders – Atladóttir, et al. Pediatrics. August 2009.
• Genome-wide analyses of exonic copy number variants in a family-based study point to novel autism susceptibility genes – Bucan, et al. PLoS Genetics.June 2009.
• Prevalence of autism spectrum disorders – Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, United States, 2006 – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Surveillance Summaries. December 2009.
• Autism genome-wide copy number variation reveals ubiquitin and neuronal genes – Glessner, et al. Nature. May 2009.
• Genomic and epigenomic evidence for oxytocin receptor deficiency in autism – Gregory, et al. BMC Medicine. October 2009.
• Risk of autism and increasing maternal and paternal age in a large North American population – Grether, et al. American Journal of Epidemiology. November 2009.
• Representation of internal models of action in the autistic brain – Haswell, et al. Nature Neuroscience. August 2009.
• Incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms in children with autism: a population-based study – Ibrahim, et al. Pediatrics. August 2009.
• Diagnostic change and the increased prevalence of autism – King & Bearman. International Journal of Epidemiology. October 2009.
• Two-year olds with autism orient to non-social contingencies rather than biological motion – Klin, et al. Nature. May 2009.
• Prevalence of parent-reported diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder among children in the US, 2007 – Kogan, et al. Pediatrics. November 2009.
• Racial/ethnic disparities in the identification of children with autism spectrum disorders – Mandell, et al. American Journal of Public Health. March 2009.
• Abnormal behavior in a chromosome-engineered mouse model for human 15q11-13 duplication seen in autism – Nakatani, et al. Cell. June 2009.
• Autism and other neuropsychiatric symptoms are prevalent in individuals with MeCP2 duplication syndrome – Ramocki, et al. Annals of Neurology. December 2009.
• Timing of identification among children with an autism spectrum disorder: findings from a population-based surveillance study – Shattuck, et al. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. May 2009.
• Partial reversal of Rett syndrome-like symptoms in MeCP2 mutant mice – Tropea, et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. February 2009.
• Common genetic variants on 5p14.1 associate with autism spectrum disorders – Wang, et al. Nature. May 2009.
• A genome-wide linkage and association scan reveals novel loci for autism – Weiss, et al. Nature. October 2009.
• Clinical assessment and management of toddlers with suspected autism spectrum disorder: insights from studies of high-risk infants – Zwaigenbaum, et al. Pediatrics. May 2009.



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The IACC is a Federal advisory committee that was created by Congress in an effort to accelerate progress in ASD research and services. The IACC works to improve coordination and communication across the Federal government and work in partnership with the autism community. The Committee is composed of officials from many different Federal agencies involved in autism research and services, as well as people with ASD, parents, advocates, and other members of the autism community. The documents and recommendations produced by the IACC reflect the views of the Committee as an independent advisory body and the expertise of the members of the Committee, but do not represent the views, official statements, policies or positions of the Federal government.  For more information on the IACC, please visit: www.iacc.hhs.gov.