This study aims to compare behavioral responses to health and life events in typically developing children and children with autism in early childhood.

Links between improvements in behavior and fever in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have been proposed in the clinical literature for several years.  These associations have important implications if behavioral or cognitive changes in ASD in response to fever can then be linked to better understood neurological or immunological factors. Most exciting are possibilities of potentially changeable aspects of behavior in children (and adults) with ASD, which were reviewed in talks given by numerous researchers at a scientific meeting conducted at the Simons Foundation on February 5th 2010 (Moorman, 2010; Schiff, personal communication, 2010).