Does the Arc of Science Bend Towards Impact? Four Decades of Empirical Research Published in JADD Since the DSM-III.
Peter Doehring
PMID 33974159WHAT IT FOUND
Across decades of autism research in JADD, there was no clear shift toward studies that test practical care.
Only about 6% of original studies clearly tested interventions in community settings.
Key findings
01The initial search yielded 708 citations, 92 citations did not present original empirical research, and 616 citations were classified.
02Of 413 basic and 204 applied research studies identified, more than 90% were published since 2009 and 60% in 2019 alone; there was no evidence of a relative increase in applied research, with basic research ranging from between 58 and 69% except for a peak of 80% in 1999.
03Intervention research dropped from a peak of 31% and 24% of all research in 1979 and 1989 to 12% in 2009 and 2019, and only about 6% of all original research studies clearly involved intervention research conducted in community settings.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This review looked only at articles published in JADD, so it may not represent autism research published elsewhere. Studies were sorted mainly from abstracts, with full text checked only as needed, so the basic and applied categories depend on the authors' judgments. Publication counts do not show whether individual studies were clinically important or had enough participants to change practice. The paper describes research output, not patient outcomes, so it cannot tell therapists whether an intervention works.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that community-based therapy does not work. It describes publication patterns in JADD, not patient outcomes, and it does not test any therapy.