This volume covers several perspectives on autism which bring together the most recent scientific views of the nature of this disorder. A number of themes organize major developments and emerging areas in autism: cognitive and neural systems development-how autism arises in the behavior and thought of very young children; discovering brain mechanisms underlying social and cognitive deficits in autism-how we can explain "social awkwardness" and poor language comprehension in terms of malfunctions of brain mechanisms, revealed by MRI studies of people with autism; integrating information about genes, brain, and biological mechanisms with behavioral evidence; and linking the science of autism with lives lived-how the new information about autism impacts people with autism and real-world considerations.