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Autism spectrum research

Everything we have read on autism spectrum. Each paper is summarised from the full article rather than its abstract, so the limitations are in there too, and the funding wherever the paper declares it.

2,764 PAPERS · PAGE 32 OF 56 · NEWEST FIRST

• SLPCohort2022Continuity and change in loneliness and stress during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study of autistic and non-autistic adults.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic adults reported significantly higher loneliness and stress than non-autistic adults during lockdowns. However, average levels in both groups remained stable from the first to the second lockdown. Perceived social support, not the quantity of social contacts, was the strongest predictor of lower stress and loneliness.
• SLPOther2023Mobile and online consumer tools to screen for autism do not promote equity.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceParents searching online for autism screening tools face practical barriers. Few search results were actual tools, many apps worked on only one phone system, and most tools were English-only.
• SLPSurvey2023'Autistic person' or 'person with autism'? Person-first language preference in Dutch adults with autism and parents.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceMost Dutch autistic adults and parents prefer 'person with autism' over 'autistic person'. Younger adults and those with higher IQs were more likely to choose identity-first language, but it remained a minority preference. Ask each patient which term they prefer.
• PTOTSLPCohort2023Patterns of sensory processing in young children with autism: Differences in autism characteristics, adaptive skills, and attentional problems.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceMost young autistic children showed mixed sensory patterns rather than uniform severe differences. Children with definite sensory differences across all modalities had lower social and daily living skills and more attention problems. Those with mostly typical sensory profiles had fewer such difficulties.
• SLPCohort2023Toward feeling, understanding, and caring: The development of empathy in young autistic children.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAdults saw empathy in autistic children differently. Parents said they caught others’ feelings as much as peers, but experimenters saw less. Autistic children showed less attention and comforting, yet comforting increased more over time.
• SLPPilot2022Working Memory Training in Youth With Autism, Fragile X, and Intellectual Disability: A Pilot Study.American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilitiesChildren with autism and intellectual disability improved on working memory tests after five weeks of Cogmed training. Some behavioral measures also improved, but the lack of a control group means these gains cannot be distinguished from practice effects or natural development.
• SLPOther2022Exclusion of females in autism research: Empirical evidence for a "leaky" recruitment-to-research pipeline.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic females with a community diagnosis scored lower on ADOS social-communication measures and were excluded from research more often than males: 50% versus 19%. ADOS-based datasets had far fewer females than community-diagnosis datasets.
• OTSLPQualitative2023Summative content analysis of the recommendations from Project ECHO Ontario Autism.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciencesProject ECHO Ontario Autism recommendations most often advised clinicians to connect families with community supports and make referrals, including occupational therapy and speech-language pathology. These are recommendation topics, not tested outcomes.
• OTSLPCase-Control2022Reexamining empathy in autism: Empathic disequilibrium as a novel predictor of autism diagnosis and autistic traits.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic adults reported an imbalance between emotional and cognitive empathy, specifically higher emotional empathy than cognitive empathy. This pattern predicted autism diagnosis and social traits more strongly than total empathy alone. The findings challenge the view that autism is characterized by a lack of empathy.
• SLPCohort2022Effects of age on the hippocampus and verbal memory in adults with autism spectrum disorder: Longitudinal versus cross-sectional findings.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchOver two to three years, autistic adults had smaller average hippocampal volumes and faster decline than neurotypical adults. In the same group, 33% showed clinically meaningful short-term verbal memory decline, compared with 4% of neurotypical adults.
• SLPOther2022Separate scoring algorithms for specific identification priorities optimize the screening properties of the Screening Tool for Autism in Toddlers (STAT).Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAdding examiner ratings of social engagement and atypical behavior to the STAT screening tool increased sensitivity for identifying autism risk in two-year-olds. This approach helps catch more at-risk children but lowers specificity, meaning more false positives.
• SLPCohort2022Replication study for ADOS-2 cut-offs to assist evaluation of autism spectrum disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchADOS-2 cut-offs rarely miss autism but wrongly flag many non-autistic children. Nearly one third of the non-ASD group were misclassified. Do not rely on ADOS-2 scores alone to diagnose. Combine them with clinical history and other assessments to avoid false positives.
• PTOTSLPCohort2022Dietary intake in children on the autism spectrum is altered and linked to differences in autistic traits and sensory processing styles.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchChildren with autism ate lower-quality diets than their siblings and unrelated peers, with less variety and more nutrient-poor foods. However, siblings shared some poor habits, and sensory hypersensitivity or seeking was linked to healthier eating, suggesting family and sensory factors drive diet more than diagnosis alone.
• SLPSurvey2022Associations between co-occurring conditions and age of autism diagnosis: Implications for mental health training and adult autism research.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic adults diagnosed at 21 or older reported more lifetime psychiatric diagnoses than those diagnosed in childhood. They also reported fewer language delays or speech articulation problems. Do not use absent language or speech problems to rule out autism.
• SLPOther2023The impact of developmental language disorder in a defendant's description on mock jurors' perceptions and judgements.International journal of language & communication disordersTelling mock jurors a defendant had developmental language disorder did not change guilty verdicts or sentence length. It did make jurors view him as more honest, likeable and less blameworthy, but also as having worse cognitive ability.
• SLPSurvey2023The impact of a positive autism identity and autistic community solidarity on social anxiety and mental health in autistic young people.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceFeeling positive about being autistic linked to better mental health, but did not significantly reduce social anxiety once autism traits were accounted for. Solidarity with other autistic people improved well-being but had no effect on social anxiety. Self-reported autism traits were the strongest predictor of social anxiety.
• SLPOther2022The Influence of Communication Sample Length on Reliability and Convergent Validity of Vocal Measures Derived From the Communication Complexity Scale.Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHRFor children with autism who use few or no words, a 10-minute sample from the start of a standard play-based assessment provides reliable vocal data. Shorter samples work for consonant inventory, but counting total or communicative vocalizations requires the full 10 minutes.
• SLPRCT2022Oxytocin impacts top-down and bottom-up social perception in adolescents with ASD: a MEG study of neural connectivity.Molecular autismA single dose of oxytocin changed brain connectivity patterns in adolescents with autism, but did not improve face recognition speed or accuracy. The neural changes correlated with autism severity, yet the study was too small to recommend oxytocin for clinical use.
• SLPCohort2022Child language and autism diagnosis impact hierarchical temporal structure of parent-child vocal interactions in early childhood.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchIn typical development, parent-child vocal interactions became less rigidly structured as children's expressive language grew. Dyads of autistic toddlers showed more rigid interaction structure than matched typical dyads, even when language levels were similar, suggesting a difference in social reciprocity rather than language ability alone.
• SLPCohort2022Exposure to family stressful life events in autistic children: Longitudinal associations with mental health and the moderating role of cognitive flexibility.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceOverall, family stressful events did not reliably predict later internalizing or externalizing symptoms in autistic children. In children with marked shifting problems, family events predicted internalizing symptoms, but the difference between groups was not reliable.
• OTSLPQualitative2023Parents' perceptions of the impact of COVID-19 and school transition on autistic children's friendships.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceParents reported that autistic children who moved to a new school with existing friends or to a setting with staggered starts and reduced crowds experienced smoother transitions. Children without these supports often struggled with isolation or peer difficulties during the pandemic.
• SLPCohort2023Concomitant medication use in children with autism spectrum disorder: Data from the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAlmost half of school-age children with autism in this research cohort took psychotropic medication. Polypharmacy was common, affecting half of those medicated. Irritability scores were significantly higher in the medicated group, suggesting these symptoms remain challenging despite treatment.
• SLPOther2022Parasympathetic withdrawal indexes risk for emotion dysregulation in children with autism spectrum disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchIn children with autism, greater parasympathetic withdrawal during a negative-emotion challenge task was linked to more observed emotion dysregulation, alongside higher ASD symptom levels. Baseline parasympathetic tone was not linked.
• SLPOther2022Coping-resilience profiles and experiences of stress in autistic adults.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic adults with low resilience and high disengagement coping reported significantly higher general perceived stress than those with high resilience and engagement coping. This suggests targeting resilience and reducing avoidance may help manage stress, though the cross-sectional design cannot prove causality.
• SLPCohort2022Parasympathetic functioning and sleep problems in children with autism spectrum disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchIn children with ASD, no direct link existed between baseline heart rate variability and sleep problems. However, those with both high baseline capacity and high stress withdrawal showed fewer sleep issues. Older age also predicted better sleep. This suggests physiological resilience rather than simple arousal drives sleep quality.
• SLPQualitative2023'Instruments are good at eliciting information; scores are very dangerous': The perspectives of clinical professionals regarding neurodevelopmental assessment.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceClinicians said autism and ADHD scores from standardised tools can mislead when depression, learning disability or context affects behaviour. They combined these tools with observations, history and school reports before deciding.
• PTOTSLPCohort2022Association of maternal autoimmune disease and early childhood infections with offspring autism spectrum disorder: A population-based cohort study.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchChildren with mothers who had autoimmune disease or who were hospitalized for infections before age two had higher odds of autism diagnosis by age nine. However, having both exposures did not multiply the risk beyond what each contributes alone.
• SLPCase-Control2022Measures of tonic and phasic activity of the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system in children with autism spectrum disorder: An event-related potential and pupillometry study.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchChildren with autism showed larger resting pupil size and weaker pupil responses to targets, suggesting a nervous system stuck in high-alert mode that filters out less important sights poorly. These measures correlated more with ADHD symptoms than with autism traits.
• OTSLPCase-Control2022Cognitive flexibility in autism: Evidence from young autistic children.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchYoung autistic children took longer and made more errors on a non-verbal task requiring them to switch rules between numbers and colors. Their performance on verbal word-list tasks was lower, but this was driven by specific word categories rather than a general inability to switch mental sets.
• SLPCohort2022Reduced social attention in autism is magnified by perceptual load in naturalistic environments.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic adults showed reduced social attention only in complex, multisensory virtual environments, not in simple static images. This suggests their difficulty is not a constant deficit but a vulnerability to high perceptual load.
• SLPNarrative Review2023Review of methods for conducting speech research with minimally verbal individuals with autism spectrum disorder.Augmentative and alternative communication (Baltimore, Md. : 1985)This review outlines how to collect and analyze speech data from minimally verbal children with autism. It compares natural language samples, repetition tasks, and acoustic measures, offering practical guidance on choosing methods that yield reliable data for clinical or research use.
• SLPCohort2023Caregiver object labels within supported and coordinated joint engagement during interaction with toddlers at elevated and typical likelihood of autism.International journal of language & communication disordersParents of toddlers at elevated likelihood for autism used more repetitive labels and fewer prompts than typical parents. Sentence-final labels helped language in supported play but hurt it in coordinated play. Prompts correlated with current speech but not future growth.
• SLPOther2023Does the gender matter?: Anxiety symptoms and emotion dysregulation in adults with autism and intellectual disabilities.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchMore difficulty regulating emotions was linked to more anxiety in 121 adults with autism and intellectual disability. In women, autism symptoms related to anxiety through emotion dysregulation. The study did not test whether reducing emotion dysregulation lowers anxiety.
• SLPCohort2023Measurements of Spontaneous Communication Initiations in Children with Autism in Preschool through Third Grade Classrooms.Journal of autism and developmental disordersChildren with autism initiated spontaneous communication only 0.69 times per minute in classrooms. Commenting was the most common function. Lower rates correlated with higher autism features and lower language skills, suggesting a need to assess communication quality, not just quantity.
• PTOTSLPCohort2022The role of intellectual disability with autism spectrum disorder and the documented cooccurring conditions: A population-based study.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchChildren with autism and intellectual disability were more likely to have documented neurological conditions and general developmental delays, but less likely to have recorded diagnoses for ADHD, anxiety, or learning disorders compared to those without intellectual disability.
• SLPOther2022Online administration of the ADOS for research with adolescents and adults in response to the pandemic.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchOnline ADOS-2 Module 4 with 37 verbal adolescents/adults produced consistent scores and related to parent-reported social and communication skills. It may help assess ASD-related behaviors when in-person testing is impossible, but not replace in-person assessment.
• SLPCohort2023Anxiety in children and youth with autism spectrum disorder and the association with amygdala subnuclei structure.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceChildren with autism showed higher anxiety on all four measures compared to non-autistic peers. In the autism group, higher parent-reported anxiety linked to larger right basal and smaller right paralaminar amygdala volumes. Whole amygdala size showed no such link.
• SLPQualitative2023Using implementation science frameworks to explore barriers and facilitators for parents' use of therapeutic strategies following a parent-mediated autism intervention.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceMost parents continued using PACT-G strategies years after therapy, driven by seeing their child's communication and wellbeing improve. Key barriers were lack of time, the child's changing mood, and forgetting the techniques without reminders. Support from therapists and school staff helped sustain use.
• SLPOther2022Predictability modulates neural response to eye contact in ASD.Molecular autismIn predictable settings, adults with autism showed delayed brain responses to eye contact. In unpredictable settings, they showed stronger early responses linked to anxiety and sensory sensitivity. Context changes how the brain processes gaze, which may explain why eye contact feels harder in real life than in therapy.
• OTSLPQualitative2023A preliminary exploration of different coping strategies used by Korean immigrant parents of autistic children in high versus low family quality of life ratings.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceKorean immigrant parents with high family quality of life actively sought information and community support to reduce guilt and build hope. Parents with low quality of life faced language barriers, felt isolated, and struggled with stigma and denial. This describes experiences, not proven treatments.
• SLPQualitative2023A qualitative exploration of autistic mothers' experiences I: Pregnancy experiences.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceAutistic mothers described pregnancy sensory changes across sound, light and touch, and wanted clear written information, specific questions and extra time in appointments. Non-autistic mothers mostly reported smell and taste changes.
• OTSLPOther2023Maladaptive behaviors in children with autism and parental hopelessness: The moderating role of parental reflective functioning.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchChildren’s maladaptive behaviors, especially autism-specific symptoms like tics or ignoring others, predicted higher parental hopelessness. This link was strongest in parents with lower reflective functioning, meaning those who struggle to interpret their child’s behavior through mental states were most at risk.
• SLPOther2023Measurement invariance of the Autism Impact Measure (AIM) across sex in children with autism spectrum disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchThe Autism Impact Measure scores core symptoms equivalently in boys and girls with autism. You can compare total domain scores between sexes without worrying that the test is biased toward the male presentation. However, the sample was mostly male and white, so this does not confirm the tool works for atypical or camouflaged presentations.
• PTOTSLPCohort2023Sleep problems in autism: Sex differences in the school-age population.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAutistic girls had the highest rates of sleep problems, affecting 84.4% compared to 65.8% of autistic boys and about 43% of typically developing children. Anxiety predicted poor sleep in boys, but not in girls.
• SLPPilot2023Exploring communicative competence in autistic children who are minimally verbal: The Low Verbal Investigatory Survey for Autism (LVIS).Autism : the international journal of research and practiceA 36-question parent survey about autistic children's communication takes about 5 minutes. Its communication score was related to existing language and communication measures, but it is not a replacement for formal testing.
• PTOTSLPCohort2023Teacher- and parent-reported trajectories of maladaptive behaviors among individuals with autism and non-spectrum delays.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchAcross ages 9 to 18, hyperactivity and irritability improved for most participants, but social withdrawal stayed stable. Participants with lower verbal intelligence or more autism features started with higher symptom levels and improved less over time, regardless of teacher or parent report.
• OTSLPCohort2022Facial expression recognition is linked to clinical and neurofunctional differences in autism.Molecular autismFacial expression recognition tests split autistic people into two groups: those with typical recognition and those with significant difficulties. The low-recognition group had more severe social symptoms and distinct brain activity patterns, suggesting these tests could help target interventions to the right patients.
• SLPCohort2023The importance of low IQ to early diagnosis of autism.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchInfants and toddlers later diagnosed with autism had lower early cognitive scores than typically developing peers. Very low scores before 1 year were associated with a higher risk of later diagnosis.
• OTSLPOther2023Predictors of individual differences in minimally verbal peer communication exchanges following peer-oriented social intervention.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism ResearchChildren with higher baseline social communication difficulties or restricted behaviors showed less progress in peer interactions. However, those with greater sensory or executive challenges sometimes improved more with intervention, suggesting specific barriers might respond well to structured peer support.
• SLPQualitative2023Co-design of an NHS primary care health check for autistic adults.Autism : the international journal of research and practiceParticipants wanted a co-designed NHS health check for autistic adults to use a pre-appointment questionnaire, flexible reasonable adjustments, biopsychosocial topics, trained staff and supporter involvement. Fifty-one autistic adults, people with intellectual disabilities, supporters and clinicians took part.