A federal committee remade by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommended on April 28 that health agencies revamp guidance for diagnosing and treating people with autism spectrum disorder.
The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee voted to advise the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to make clear to doctors that they should be prepared to recognize and treat new issues that crop up in autistic people, such as seizures and difficulty sleeping; develop standardized clinical steps when encountering conditions such as developmental regression and allergic disease when screening, diagnosing, and treating children with autism; and formally define profound autism as having little or no ability to speak and require continuous supervision.
