I think the gold standard is a clinical diagnosis, that an astute clinician interacting with a child, interviewing the parents, talking with teachers makes the diagnosis based on some standard tests and also on clinical impression and skill.
Gerald FischbachAutism is a developmental disorder characterized by two main components: an inability to interact socially with other people with joint attention to understand other people's thoughts.
Gerald FischbachThe brain immediately confronts us with its great complexity. The human brain weighs only three to four pounds but contains about 100 billion neurons.
Gerald Fischbach