For decades, promoters of facilitated communication, rapid prompting, etc, chose not to fairly test their benefits vs harms to autistics onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... and in 2026 this still has not changed--commentary authors reject RCTs, ignore autistics harmed by these hyped methods, etc

Reflexivity & positionality in ABA?--behavior analysts "challenge and encourage our field to utilize qualitative reflexivity and positionality in the research process"?--which means elaborate lengthy positionality statements while COIs are ignored? link.springer.com/article/10.1... autism-relevant

"results extend previous findings demonstrating reduced Bouba-Kiki effects in autistic individuals"? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "results suggest that multisensory integration is less robust in autism and lend support to 'embodied cognition' accounts of autism"?

Autism &/or ADHD & alcohol use, free link.springer.com/article/10.1... autistics were "more likely than controls to fall into the possible dependence category" but "drank less overall" & "had the highest proportion who reported not getting drunk"--"autism alone is associated with lower alcohol use"

Totally dubious ABA-promoting meta-analysis of EIBI for autism onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... spans 36 years, includes zero RCTs, based on 15 small poor quality studies (including 1 where very young autistics were hit), harms are not an outcome or even mentioned, big COIs, etc--ABA in 2026

54% of ABA practitioners "have considered leaving the ABA profession altogether" & while 70% are currently working in autism/IDD, only 4% want to work in this area? link.springer.com/article/10.1... quote from ABA practitioner: "feeling like this field does more harm than good for autistic people"

"complex communication needs" is defined as very low language test scores--or "limited spoken language" or "cannot communicate using speech alone" or "do not use spoken words as... primary means of communication" or "may use AAC strategies..."? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... autism-relevant

Autistics "demonstrated a preference for more complex geometric figures even in the absence of social stimuli" but "NT individuals showed no such preference" link.springer.com/article/10.1... which "may reflect an inherent attraction to repetitive, regular, & visually complex features" in autistics?

Registered: autistics' "experiences of receiving a mental health misdiagnosis prior to an autism diagnosis" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... qualitative synthesis, aiming to "provide valuable insight into the current gaps in diagnostic practices and highlight potential detrimental consequences"

Autistics "are known to demonstrate greater cognitive inflexibility"?--"defined as a reduction in the ability to easily switch between thoughts & behaviors, resulting in the inability to engage in more adaptive behavioral strategies"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... an intervention to fix this?

Who has a say in the behavior intervention plans (BIPs) imposed on autistic & other IDD students?--in records from 87 BIPs, "only four students were involved in developing their BIPs" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "This is concerning" "it is critical that input is gathered from all students"

Educator & parent views on employment for autistics & others with "extensive support needs"?--as opposed to high, pervasive, significant, complex, etc support needs? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... note: here "extensive support needs" means "significant cognitive impairment"--which is undefined

For autistics, "neurodiversity-affirming" PCIT?--which is "inherently built upon the principles of behavior analysis" i.e. it is ABA-based, including time-outs (ABA punishment procedure) link.springer.com/article/10.1... note: authors fail to mention the PCIT holding chair (restraint as punishment)

"both exceptionally large and small head circumference measures during infancy are significantly associated with a subsequent diagnosis of autism..."? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... & this "may be attributed to overall growth abnormalities & not a restricted characteristic of head growth"?

"Bilingual autistic children did better than monolingual autistic children at focusing on language and ignoring distractions" "findings suggest that bilingualism is not only non-detrimental but may offer cognitive and linguistic benefits in autism" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... free

"The increase in autism prevalence between 2000 and 2016 was disproportionately among those with mild or no significant adaptive limitations and without co-occurring ID"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... based on health & education records with "a large amount of missing adaptive information"

"autistic people reported higher levels of negative post-traumatic appraisals" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... including fear appraisals: "it is plausible that these are developed and reinforced through repeated experiences of the world not being safe or supportive for autistic people"

In which ABA-promoting authors "describe and advocate for a neurodiversity framework in the context of the medical necessity of ABA in support of Autistic individuals"? & "conclude with recommendations for delivering neurodiversity-affirming ABA"? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... COIs

For students (age 6-11) classified as having "extensive support needs" what does "challenging behavior" mean?--this review includes "playing with academic materials during instruction" & "turning away from person making a request" & "stereotypy" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... autism-relevant

Authors conclude that "inclusion of autistic people with profound ID is an imperative" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... but their actual study participants are autistics with any "ID or Developmental Delay" & "quantitative data were not available regarding participants’ intellectual ability..."

"If authors want to understand autism they need to control for IQ statistically..."? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... but tests claimed to assess IQ are misleading in autism ("IQ tests used in both research and practice tend to underestimate the cognitive abilities of autistic people"--yes)

Autistic educators on their experiences journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... autistics "described a staffroom culture of commenting negatively about autistic children" & one "reflected on working previously in a special school where the staff 'were really rude and derogatory about the students...'"

Registered: "Experiences of epistemic injustice... such as credibility deficits, dismissal, misrepresentation, silencing, or lack of interpretive resources" in neurodivergent adults ("diagnosed or self-identified as autistic &/or ADHD") in the UK www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review

Behavior analysts still don't know how to interpret the data they collect using functional analyses--but functional analyses do harm autistics, e.g. in this study causing high rates of "hitting oneself in the head or banging head against a surface" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... ABA in 2025

In autistic & ADHD 6-21 year-olds, "GI symptoms may be a feature of social communication deficits and restrictive-repetitive behaviors rather than a feature of a diagnosis"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... cross-sectional study, "did not control for medications or behavioral therapies"

"improving healthcare systems for autistic people requires understanding the interconnected complexity with other systems, such as social care budgets, housing and employment support"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... autism & participatory systems mapping, editorial (no mention of human rights)

On autism & functional neurological disorder, review, free journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "autistic individuals who find it difficult to downweight noisy sensory input may be particularly prone to forming strongly weighted maladaptive priors that lead to functional symptoms"?

How autistic adults experience anxiety, 11-study qualitative systematic review, free link.springer.com/article/10.1... experiences ranged "from vague unease to acute panic" & autistics "did not always describe what they felt as 'anxiety' and often used words such as 'nerves', 'panic' and 'dread'"

"Molehill Mountain" anxiety management app for autistic adults?--uncontrolled feasibility study, free onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... "while many participants experienced a reduction in anxiety symptom severity post-intervention, for others anxiety was relatively stable, or increased"

Registered: "This is a feasibility study of psychological well-being groups for autistic teenagers, called an autism social identity group (a-island)" which is "facilitated by two adults, one of whom will be autistic" www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN18332093 planned N=70 RCT (a-island vs care as usual)

Precision grip performance in autistics vs non-autistics aged 30-73 years--"autistic adults showed several differences in grip performance, including overshooting the target force, greater variability in grip force, and releasing their grip too early"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... free

Autistic views of identity- vs person-first language (IFL vs PFL), review link.springer.com/article/10.1... the authors recommend IFL for presenting to "autistic and neurodiversity advocacy movement members"--but PFL for "writing up a study about people with autism and intellectual disabilities"?

In the general population, pragmatic language use has 3 distinct components?--"an ability to understand social conventions, an ability to extract meaning from intonation, and an ability to make causal inferences based on world knowledge" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... autism-relevant

"Interventions for aggression in school-aged autistic children should consider aggression towards others, SIB, and social skills as separate targets, as changes in one domain did not appear to be related to changes in other domains"? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... based on parent-report

Report from HEARD ("Healthy Engagement in Autism Research Dialogue") about autism genetics www.cell.com/trends/genet... HEARD's aims: "allowing productive disagreement, critical examination of one’s perspectives, and improving our collective capacity for holding conflicting perspectives in mind"?

Factors associated with types of self-injury in autistics aged 3-19?--"The main finding was that distress associated with disruptions to routines was the strongest predictor of all types of self-injurious behavior"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... note: everything here is parent-reported

Registered: "How do autistic people describe their experiences of meltdowns, shutdowns, and burnout?" "What similarities and differences do autistic people describe about the experience of meltdowns, shutdowns and burnout?" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... qualitative systematic review

Self-compassion in autism? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... autistics experience "stigma and victimization... much more than non-autistic people" ergo "relational factors may play a more significant role than individual-specific factors such as cognitive-affective attitude toward oneself"

Mixed methods in ABA? "Adding qualitative approaches to a single-case experimental design may further individualize the numerical data by offering a richer understanding of the personal experiences of people who receive ABA services and supports"? link.springer.com/article/10.1... autism-relevant

Driver's license status vs travel patterns in autistics? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "Regardless of licensure status, most autistic young adults reported not traveling everywhere they wanted to go; nearly 80% appear to be interested in a transportation modality they did not currently use"

"a small elephant or an elephant missing a leg is not less of an elephant than a large, healthy elephant, and a rhinoceros is not a horned fraction of elephant-ness. Autistic-ness is not a continuous variable" journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... argument against autism as dimension & spectrum, free

"profound autism" now means "IQ or DQ ≤50, minimal verbal skills, and adaptive functioning ≤70"? link.springer.com/article/10.1... 25.9% (N=121/468) of autistics under age 8 "were classified as ‘at risk of profound autism’"?--vs only 2.2% (N=1/45) age 8-16 who "met criteria for profound autism"?

To study data collection, behavior analysts conduct unethical functional analyses that cause autistics to repeatedly hit themselves--e.g., one autistic hit his head >2000 times? (see Fig 3, self-hitting was blocked only "when it exceeded 10s") journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... this is ABA in 2025

Registered: aiming "to synthesise existing evidence on autistic burnout within workplace and educational settings, identifying its defining features, contributing factors, impacts, and potential supports" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review of studies published 2015 to the present

In which autistic children trying to stop ABA have "low motivation" or "a skill deficit"?--& in which autistics show "problem behavior" when "preferred items were introduced and then removed during instruction as is done during a typical DTT session" link.springer.com/article/10.1... more ABA harms

"the 'broad autism phenotype' conceptualization is now fading, and the field is moving toward a binary model (autistic or non-autistic)"? "a more transdiagnostic focus would be beneficial for improving treatment models"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... report on assessing autism in adults

"disparities in ABA services for autistic children"?--authors' poorly-sourced & ill-founded premise is that ABA is beneficial (vs harmful) & more ABA is better (e.g. "ABA is most effective when... delivered at a high intensity") journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... no, not in an ABA journal, free

Comparing self-harm & suicidality in autistic vs non-autistic adults aged 40-93 years (mean age 60) link.springer.com/article/10.1... 55% of autistics, vs 13.3% of non-autistics, responded "yes" to the question, "Have you deliberately harmed yourself, whether or not you meant to end your life?"

On "autistic people with complex support needs (CSN)"?--"a group of autistic people who are persistently and profoundly disabled"? "there is some controversy over identifying this group of people within the autistic population at all"? journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... editorial, free

Behavior analysts on autism, ABA, & "ableism"?--promoting ABA as "having contributed to effective instruction, behavior assessment, and intervention strategies designed to meet the highly individualized needs of Autistic people"? link.springer.com/article/10.1... awash in abysmal ABA standards, free