The first child to be diagnosed with autism, Donald Triplett, was born more than eighty years ago in Mississippi, and in the years that followed, autism remained a rare condition, limited to the eleven children mentioned in the article announcing the disorder's discovery. Today physicians, parents and politicians regularly speak of an epidemic of autism.

In a Different Key is the extraordinary story of the quest to understand autism. By introducing an unforgettable cast of children, families and clinicians, award-winning journalists John Donvan and Caren Zucker unearth the humanity at the heart of the scientific effort to treat this condition.