A growing amount of evidence points to the importance of early behavioral interventions in the treatment of autism. However, health professionals typically won't diagnose the disorder sooner than 18 months, and often much later. To help close this gap, a major, national research study is being led in Minnesota by Prof. Suma Jacob, MD, PhD, of Consortium member the Center for Neurobehavioral Development. The study, SPARK, has the goal of collecting DNA and other data from 50,000 people with autism and their family members. An article in MinnPost quotes Prof. Jacob as saying "There have been studies that have shown that there are strong heritable components in autism. . . . What’s exciting about [SPARK] is we know that we need to gather a large number of families with autism to find as many potential connections as possible. We are in the process of collecting that large sample." She cautions, however, "The disorder is different in each individual. . . . Generalizations just don’t fit."