Behavior analysts require autistics (age 4) to complete an "attending protocol"--before each ABA trial, they must "place their hands under their legs"--& require autistics (age 4) to always imitate others when told ("do this" "say this") link.springer.com/article/10.1... this is ABA in 2026, free

"a core neural phenotype of autism that is shared across a large fraction of autistic individuals involves the reduced functional connectivity of sensorimotor areas and the increased functional connectivity of transmodal areas..."? www.nature.com/articles/s44... based on resting-state fMRI, free

Warning signs of suicide in autistic people, scoping review, free link.springer.com/article/10.1... finding "most sources were books or book chapters. Only one source explicitly defined ‘warning signs’. Robust research on warning signs of suicide in autistic people is lacking"

"Irritability in autistic adults is a major crisis"? "what is labeled 'irritability' in many autistic adults may often be a physiological response to cumulative stress or trauma, or a manifestation of intrinsic neurobiological dysregulation..."? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... review, free

Registered: aiming to "explore how autistic adults experience the physical environment within healthcare settings" & "synthesise environmental recommendations to support autistic adults in healthcare settings" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review of qualitative studies

Parent-reported "sensory profiles" in autism and/or FXS? free journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "The autistic groups (autism and FXS+ASD) were similar on hypo-responsivity and sensory seeking, and the FXS groups (FXS-only and FXS+ASD) were similar on hyper-responsivity and sensory seeking"?

Not finding predicted & presumed autistic deficits in prospective memory & executive functioning ("working memory and inhibition performance"), under high vs low cognitive demands onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... "In contrast to our expectations" "in contrast to the extant literature"

Autistic "hypoconnectivity and hyperconnectivity subtypes"? "a new empirical framework for targeted subtyping of the autism spectrum"?--but only 25% of autistics could be subtyped? www.nature.com/articles/s41... & subtypes did not differ in RRBs, or "age, IQ, sex, psychiatric co-occurrence..."?

See autism researchers use "community involvement" to unethically deny autistics fair tests of interventions--e.g. "They didn’t want a control group to not have an opportunity, or to be invited, to also receive the intervention. And that’s very understandable" link.springer.com/article/10.1... free

Reviewing "studies into autistic language & communication published in 2023" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... in N=123 studies with typical controls, predictions were: autistics would perform better 3.3%, autistics would perform worse 45.5%, both 5.7%, neither 22% (& no prediction in 23.6%)

"The starting point that the typical brain is optimal shapes both research theory (e.g., neurodevelopmental theory) and practice... We argue that this premise is false--in many ways, the brain is 'suboptimal', and importantly so" www.cell.com/trends/cogni... autism-relevant, free

Registered: "How do mainstream primary schools promote inclusion practices for autistic pupils?" "What are the experiences and perspectives of stakeholders (autistic students, their parents, peers, and educators) in mainstream education?" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review

Autism journal editor wonders if there are autistics "we had underestimated... because the assessments we use are designed for speaking individuals"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... note: there are studies (not involving hyped "assisted" typing methods) on better ways to assess autistics

Pimavanserin vs placebo for "irritability" in autistics aged 5-17, 6-week RCT?--"Pimavanserin did not demonstrate statistically significant improvement in primary or secondary efficacy endpoints... owing primarily to a substantial placebo effect"? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... COIs, free

"subtypes of aphantasia vary alongside three main dimensions: the number of sensory modalities involved, the amount of imagery experienced, and the presence or absence of additional cognitive features"? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... autism-relevant, free

See behavior analysts use punishment (response blocking) to stop autistics from "arranging and ordering" (e.g. "lining pens up" "straightening tables or chairs" "fixing items that were out of place" "closing drawers" "capping or uncapping pens") onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... ABA in 2026

"The ADOS-2 has never been validated for autistic examiners" (or ADHD examiners, or...) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... in a letter, authors "call for systematic examination of how examiner neurotype affects ADOS-2 administration and scoring"

Registered: aiming to "systematically identify and synthesise qualitative studies exploring how autism is conceptualised, interpreted, and made meaningful within lay (non-expert) populations" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review and meta-ethnographic synthesis

Social support & QoL in autistics aged 40 & older--"getting more initial practical support was linked to lower overall QoL 2 years later"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "baseline QoL is more strongly predictive of later subjective social support than baseline social support is of later QoL"?

"emotion dysregulation" & "prediction gone awry" in autism & ADHD? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "autism may involve heightened confidence assigned to surprising inputs together with sluggish updating of expectations, a combination that can produce both reactivity and emotional inertia"?

"Autistic neurodiversity supporters tend to exhibit more scientifically based knowledge and support well-established uses of science and medicine more than most of the autism community"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... note: in this article, 89% (8 of 9) of the references are self-cites

Yes autistic independent typers exist, but no this does not mean "support" controlling what autistics type is beneficial vs harmful onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... letter claiming fair tests of FC, rapid prompting, etc--which have been hyped as beneficial for decades--are still not possible

Registered: "this review will investigate whether interventions with an interoceptive mechanism of change decrease symptoms of anxiety in autistic individuals and explore which dimensions of interoception this may work at" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review

Autistic burnout, interviews, free journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "The research team comprised both autistic and non-autistic researchers"--autistics "contributed lived experience" (only?) but non-autistics "contributed... perspectives grounded in qualitative methodology and autism research"?

Registered: autism & musculoskeletal pain, systematic review www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... "the relationship between autism and musculoskeletal pain during adolescence and young adulthood, a critical developmental period for the onset and persistence of pain, has received limited investigation"

"Although greater autism... severity has been assumed to increase the risk of traumatic dental injuries, this association was not observed in this study" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... based on DSM-5-TR autism "severity" levels in N=441 autistics aged 3-15 years in Atlantic Canada, free

Autistic (vs other developmentally disabled & general population) adolescents have lower daily living skills? jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... note: based on caregiver-report, & "the study was unable to examine other contextual factors, such as the opportunity to learn or perform a skill..."

Autism double empathy problem studies, critical review, free link.springer.com/article/10.1... "Most studies made measurements that did not directly measure cognitive or affective empathy" "Many studies had setups that were not conducive towards attaining cognitive or affective empathy..." etc

In 12-30 year-olds, "symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)" do not differ for autistic vs typical groups, but are lower for the LAD ("loss of autism diagnosis") group? link.springer.com/article/10.1... "One important finding was the generally low rate of ODD symptoms across the 3 groups"

New "profound autism" criteria--"(1) cannot care for basic daily needs, (2) does not use words to communicate, and (3) has a current diagnosis of intellectual disability (ID)"? jamanetwork.com/journals/jam... among N=238 autistics aged 12-16, N=6 (2.5%) met all 3 of these "profound autism" criteria?

The "Introspective Predictive Processing Inventory" for autistic adults? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... with 2 factors, capturing "challenges in integrating sensory and social inputs with predictive models" & "need for environmental predictability and distress responses to unexpected changes"?

Registered: aiming to "evaluate the extent to which existing early-in-life supports for infants and toddlers who are autistic or at elevated autism likelihood align with community perspectives as identified in prior research"? www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review

How autistics, parents of autistics, & professionals view language interventions for autism, survey acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... "a minority of participants—from across the sample... did not see any potential risk of harm from participants taking part in language interventions"?

Autism, education, & "the widespread use of noise-cancelling headphones" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "little empirical research" "limited research exploring the long-term use of noise-cancelling headphones... for autistic students" "a need for future studies with rigorous research designs"

Autism & ageing, roundtable journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "think about mistreatment through medications which are wrong for you if you have been wrongly diagnosed... & you got different kinds of psychiatric medication, what does that mean for your body ageing & your mental cognitive ageing?"

ABA in 2026: behavior analysts claim punishment (RIRD) to reduce "stereotypy" in autism is justified "when researchers explicitly identify why stereotypy is being targeted..." journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... & very falsely claim there is "compelling evidence" that autistics prefer punishment

"Scientist‐practitioners of ABA have an explicit and ethical responsibility to adhere to the highest standards of service derived from evidence‐based practices"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... ABA in autism adheres to rock-bottom standards in research & practice, and this harms autistics

In older autistic adults, "elevated odds of falls, rate of unique fall-related injuries, & rate of fall-related hospitalizations" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "results are striking in their magnitude yet unsurprising given that known fall risk factors... are prevalent among autistic people"?

Registered: "What instruments are currently used to assess PDA traits or behaviours in autistic children, adolescents, and young adults?" "What is the quality of the evidence supporting the measurement properties of these instruments...?" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review

"If blinding is inadequate, stronger placebo effects might be observed in the active treatment group and weaker placebo effects in the placebo group due to divergent expectanices surrounding receiving the desired treatment" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... review, autism-relevant

Lovaas' 40hrs/wk is very incompletely (no range or SD), inaccurately & inconsistently reported in the literature. In sworn legal testimony, actual range was 18 to >50hrs. This range & how it relates to outcomes has never been reported in the literature. & so on. Did an INSAR poster on this ages ago

Younger students in a grade are "more likely to be classified with SEN" "SEN status often persists and shapes students’ educational trajectories through lowered academic expectations, differentiated learning goals, and even... segregated settings" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... autism-relevant

"autistic adults use the term Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria... to describe extreme responses to rejection and criticism"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... note: there is a literature on autism & "rejection sensitivity dysphoria" but still no literature on autism & human rights violations

"camouflaging can lead to autistic burnout"? "although unmasking can be helpful in prevention or recovery, there are complexities to its safety due to the threat of stigma and discrimination that autistic people face" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... systematic review of qualitative studies

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