Abstract: Autism is a neurodevelopmental disability characterized by deficits in verbal communications, impairments in social interactions and repetitive behaviors and recent studies have indicated that autism is considerably more common than previously supposed. Several studies have indicated strong involvement of multigenic components in the etiology of autism. A combination of phenotypic heterogeneity and the likely involvement of multiple interacting loci have hampered efforts at gene discovery. Linkage analyses and candidate gene search approaches so far have not identified any reliable susceptibility genes. This study, will review the literature to date summarizing the results of cytogenetic studies with a focus on recent progress in the field of autism research.