Thomas Insel is director of the National Institute of Mental Health and head of the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. David Amaral is a leading autism researcher at the MIND Institute at the University of California, Davis.
They are quick to point to the enormous strides autism research has made over the past 20 years, but they also are honest in describing what a long way we are from understanding its basic mechanisms or how to treat it or prevent it.