Autistic (vs typical) children show enhanced attention to educational materials in their environment (e.g. "illustrations of the solar system" "times tables grids") journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... but--the authors claim this is bad ("negative" "detrimental") for learning? this must be stopped?
"the wider lived experiences of aphantasic people"--autism-relevant, free www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Most respondents realised comparatively late in their lives that their experience was not the norm... most had simply assumed that 'picturing' was nothing more than a figure of speech"
Registered: qualitative research "exploring the experiences of autistic adults who received their diagnosis in middle-to-late adulthood (40+ years), focusing on the impact of diagnosis on individuals' psychological outcomes..." www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review & meta-synthesis
To stop "stereotypy" in an autistic boy (age 7), behavior analysts use punishment (holding his hands down for 30s)--ABA in 2026 link.springer.com/article/10.1... note: the authors disguise their use of punishment & punishers as "response reduction"--"as we thought this might improve acceptability"
Autism overdiagnosis "can harmfully divert resources from children with greater needs, marginalize those with autism already at the periphery of our societies, and reshape the way children develop in ways that stunt natural resilience and growth"? jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... viewpoint
For autistics, it's all over by age 5 ("well past the time for best outcomes")? "strong evidence shows that early behavioral intervention can significantly improve outcomes & quality of life"?--no, benefits vs harms have not been fairly tested jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... viewpoint with epic COIs
In autistics "persistent, clinically elevated EF challenges regardless of their cognitive ability"? "Flexibility difficulties predict mental health challenges across anxiety, depression, & aggression"? acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... but--parent-report only & BRIEF is bad for autistics
What terms do autistic & other neurodivergent adults prefer? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "at the heart of it, terminology discussions, particularly in an academic setting, are not about language at all, but the lingering dehumanisation of people considered ‘disordered’ or ‘abnormal’"
On the block design task, "certain strategies—particularly analytic and synthetic approaches—are associated with greater performance" & "autistic individuals tend to adopt these effective strategies more consistently than neurotypical participants" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... free
Registered: "Is there an association between autism and/or ADHD (diagnosed or high trait groups) and all-cause dementia?" "What factors mediate or moderate the association between autism/ADHD and dementia?" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review & meta-analysis
"the first ASSR study in autism... to incorporate an active auditory oddball task"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... autistic (vs typical) children had "markedly poorer behavioral performance"?--autistics had similar % correct & detection sensitivity; but faster RTs & more false alarms
Autism researchers & service providers "often neglect to consider the potential for interventions to cause harm... and they communicate more confidence regarding the possibility of benefits for autistic people than is warranted given the evidence" journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... editorial, free
"COIs continue to be pervasive in ABA autism intervention research, and most remain undisclosed. Most alarmingly, the practice of falsely claiming not to hold COIs remains entrenched in this field of research and appears to have worsened over time" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... an update
Comparing how autistic vs non-autistic adults (age 40-90) approach & experience retirement, online survey, free journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... autistics were "less likely to have made retirement plans, and among those who had plans, they were more likely to have been disrupted or changed"
"a starting point for the development of new scholarship about ND musicians by ND musicians"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "when referring to forms of neurodivergence, we are only discussing innate neurological differences" as opposed to "acquired neurodivergence" ("e.g. depression")?
Autistics (vs non-autistics) "show more negative interoceptive evaluation"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "autistic traits predicted all three interoception measures (evaluation, accuracy and attention)" but "presence or absence of an autism diagnosis only predicted interoceptive evaluation"
"the effects of an AI-based intervention (Noora) on emotionally responsive verbal communication in autistic adults" (N=3)?--in which autistic responses "focused on problem-solving" are judged wrong, and subject to "corrective feedback"? link.springer.com/article/10.1... ABA in 2026, COIs, free
Daily living skills in "non- or minimally-speaking" ("NMS") autistic adults? link.springer.com/article/10.1... "the nonverbal reasoning skills of NMS individuals vary widely... it seems reasonable that independence in daily living skills amongst NMS autistic adults would also vary widely"
Authors "found more differences than we expected between autism and BPD. The differences we found were apparent despite including individuals with subclinical traits of the comparator diagnosis, and aligned with each diagnostic construct" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... free
"Reporting of RCT abstracts remains incomplete particularly for key items including trial design, random sequence generation, blinding, and funding source disclosure" "Targeted interventions for authors, editors and reviewers are needed..." link.springer.com/article/10.1... autism-relevant, free
"research is urgently required to address the driving barriers and challenges faced by autistic people"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "challenges... often relate to societal barriers or negative experiences, rather than due to any proven differences in driving safety or performance"
SRS-2 for autistic adults?--self & informant reports had low concordance & "did not map well with clinician’s impressions" link.springer.com/article/10.1... & "no evidence to suggest that autistic individuals found difficulty in responding to SRS-2 items which require them to hold insight..."?
2 new copyrighted measures dictating what autistics should do in research, and how?--a lot of autistic contributions (e.g. mine) get graded poorly, disparaged as non-meaningful, non-genuine, etc journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... authors gave "paid guest lectures" on this & declare no COIs?
Registered: "In studies of the predictive coding theory of autism, are group differences reduced by unexpected vs expected uncertainty"? www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review, aiming "to clarify the predictive coding theory of autism through signalled and un-signalled uncertainty"
"a significantly elevated amplitude of hand flapping in autistic toddlers relative to non-autistic toddlers" but "no group differences emerged in the frequency of repetitive hand flapping"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... "findings highlight the variability of repetitive hand flapping"
Constructing & implementing "the PBIS-Residential setting for Autistic Adults"?--PBIS means ABA all the time everywhere journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... all done and reported with zero input from the autistic adult residents & zero autistic input of any kind at any time (have I got that right)
"we caution against the assumption that all autistic people camouflage" "camouflaging is not specific nor unique to autistic people" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "there is little evidence to suggest camouflaging should be included in the diagnostic criteria for an autism diagnosis"
Catatonia in autism & NDDs--"the evidence base remains methodologically immature and rooted largely in case reports, series, and observational studies" sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "Differentiating catatonia from core autistic features remains one of the field’s greatest challenges"?
In students with "extensive support needs" (most are autistic), Wechsler IQ ranges up to 115? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "extensive support needs" means "eligible for the Alternate Assessment for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities" and/or adaptive behavior scores under 76?
Reported DSM-5 autism "severity" levels for autistics aged 4 & 8?--across 11 US states, reported prevalence of level 3 "severity" (i.e. "most severe") ranged from 7.5% to 53.8%? link.springer.com/article/10.1... "The degree to which autistic people find utility in the severity levels is unclear"?