What You’ve Wanted to Know About Autism but Were Too Afraid to Ask

Chasing Life

CNN

Nutrition, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.5 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2026

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In response to a listener's call about her autistic son, Dr. Sanjay Gupta invited leading autism researcher Dr. Matthew Lerner, Director of the Social Connections and Treatment Lab at the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute, to break down how our understanding of autism has changed, what it means to be “on the spectrum” and why diagnoses are on the rise. The conversation continues next Tuesday on Paging Dr. Gupta, where Sanjay explores what growing up and transitioning into adulthood really looks like for autistic people. Our show was produced by Jennifer Lai and Kyra Dahring Medical Writer: Andrea KaneShowrunner: Amanda Sealy Senior Producer: Dan BloomTechnical Director: Dan Dzula Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Chasing Life.
0:03.0	Last year, I got a voicemail that really made me pause.
0:06.3	It was from a caller named Victoria.
0:08.3	She lives in San Antonio, Texas, and she had a pretty simple request.
0:12.7	I would absolutely love if you can kind of just give us some facts about autism.
0:18.1	We've seen the numbers go up and I have an autistic son. Thank you for being a
0:23.4	source that we can trust. Facts. That's what Victoria is asking for. For herself, yes, but I think
0:30.8	also for anyone trying to make sense of all the headlines and debates and misinformation
0:35.5	that we're seeing these days about autism.
0:37.9	So that's exactly what we're going to do today.
0:40.8	I'm going to be talking with Dr. Matthew Lerner, is a leading autism researcher at Drexel University,
0:45.7	and we're going to be getting into the facts.
0:48.6	What is autism?
0:50.5	How has our understanding of it changed?
0:53.1	And why does it seem to be rising in terms of overall numbers?
0:57.4	I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent.
1:01.0	And this is chasing life.
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