To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent research into cerebral inhibition soothing behaviours and the compromised capacity of persons who are autistic undertaken by autism spectrum experts his Department has (a) commissioned and (b) evaluated; and if he will make a statement. (305721)

Neither the Department nor the Medical Research Council (MRC) is currently supporting or evaluating research relating to cerebral inhibition soothing behaviours and the compromised capacity of persons who are autistic. Both fund a portfolio of other research relating to autism on which the MRC, for example, spent over £2.4 million in 2008-09.