New research provides an altered direction with more promising educational outcomes for students with autism spectrum diagnoses and is beginning to unravel the perplexing variety of learning differences and behavioral issues these children exhibit. Since the turn of the century newer technologies are enabling views of the brain at work--functional brain imaging--as well as views of brain pathways that now point to marked developmental differences in the brain connections of individuals with autism. This theory maintains that individuals with autism have trouble connecting sight to sound, sound to meaning, or one thought with another. This is because it appears that the long fiber tracts that process and integrate complex information across vast brain territories are not developing in a typical way. The research also has formed the basis for therapies that in tests have helped children on the autism spectrum to improve.