Methods and compositions for the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms in a sample are provided. The methods and compositions are employed to determine whether the subject has autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is likely to develop ASD, or to classify a subject as having a particular ASD subtype. In one method of the invention, a sample is probed for one or more SNPs in Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, Table 6 or Table 7 at the nucleic acid level by performing a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with primers specific to the SNPs. The presence and/or absence of the one or more SNPs is then compared to the presence and/or absence of the of the SNPs in at least one sample training set(s), where the comparing step comprises applying a statistical algorithm which comprises determining a correlation between the SNP data obtained from the sample and the SNP data from the at least one training set. The sample is diagnosed as ASD positive or ASD negative based on the results of the statistical algorithm.
DIAGNOSIS AND PREDICTION OF AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER