AUTISM RESEARCH CENTRE - UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

The ARC is partnered with the National Autistic Society (the UK's leading charity for autism) and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mental Health Foundation NHS Trust. The ARC receives major funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wellcome Trust, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the Three Guineas Trust, and the Baily Thomas Trust, among other sponsors. The Patrons of the ARC are novelist Nick Hornby, musician Jools Holland, actor Daniel Radcliffe, the geneticist James Watson, theatre and film director Stephen Poliakoff, and novelist Philip Pullman. The ARC was founded in 1999 and celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Royal Society. Autism is a spectrum of neurodevelopmental conditions, characterised by difficulties in the development of social relationships and communication skills, in the presence of unusually strong narrow interests, repetitive behaviour, and difficulties in coping with unexpected change.

The causes of autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are ultimately genetic but there are likely to also be environmental factors that interact with these. The changes in the pattern of brain development are evident from at least 2 years of age, and are likely to reflect pre- and perinatal factors. Currently two major subgroups are recognized: Classic autism and Asperger Syndrome. Classic autism also typically involves associated learning difficulties (below average IQ) and language delay.

Asperger Syndrome (AS) shares the features of autism but without the associated learning difficulties (they have average or even above average IQ) and without any language delay. The proposed changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (5th edition) may merge both of these subgroups under the single heading of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Note that in the ARC we prefer the term ASC to the term ASD, but both terms are widely used.