Autistic Spectrum Disorders

This special issue assembles the work of several leading autism research groups in the United States. Together, the authors focus on behavioral, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging investigations of preschoolers, school-age children, adolescents, and adults with autistic spectrum disorder diagnosis. Three articles in this issue examine executive functioning, such as the ability to abstract rules, shift attention, learn from feedback, and maintain a focus on multiple aspects of information of information in decision making. Other areas addressed are social regression, face processing skills, and spatial attention deficit. The studies examined in Autism Spectrum Disorders help to act as a bridge between a complex developmental syndrome and the search for answers regarding the underlying causes and treatments for the future.