Michelle Dawson

Registered: "Developing and applying new autistic-led standards for social care environments: a participatory action research study of Ethical Quality Autistic Led Support" www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN12256307 "The project will make new tools to help care services provide better care for autistic people"

Motor Performance in Autistic Youth From Childhood Through Adolescence: Evidence for Both Sustained and Widening Group Differences Although motor-skill differences in autistic individuals are well established, there is diverging evidence regarding what happens to motor skills in autistic children as they become adolescents. Usin...

"autistic youth had weaker grip strength and more difficulty with motor skills compared to non-autistic peers, with the gap in strength widening in adolescence and the gap in overall motor ability remaining the same or narrowing"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... data from age 6 to 18, free

“The best way we can stop suicides is by making lives worth living”: a mixed-methods survey in the UK of perspectives on suicide prevention from the autism community Autistic people are at higher risk of dying by suicide than are non-autistic people, but research focused on suicide prevention in autistic individual…

Survey results "challenged traditional intrapersonal and pathologising accounts of autistic suicidality... conceptualising this instead in response to systemic injustices, requiring coordinated, preventative and multisector responses to make lives worth living" sciencedirect.com/science/arti... free

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Among autistic and/or ADHD and dyslexic adults, "preferences, offensiveness, acceptability, and self-use of six neurodiversity-related terms"?--UK & US survey, free journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "neurominority was the least preferred and considered the most offensive of all presented terms"

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Autistics (N=17) on ageing journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... e.g. an autistic aged 46 on Parkinson's: "I have traits in common with Parkinson’s already... But it also might be that they don’t really have Parkinson’s, it’s just what autistic people look like when they get old. I’d like to know"

Autism data sharing: Benefits, challenges, and recommendations Author summary Data sharing is becoming more important in scientific research. Larger datasets enable more detailed and accurate information to be analysed and can lead to better collaboration among r...

On data sharing in autism, which may "exacerbate irresponsible or biased interpretation of data" leading to "promotion of interventions damaging to the autistic community" & "greater misunderstanding of autism" & "deterioration in the QoL of autistic people" journals.plos.org/digitalhealt... review

Registered: aiming to "integrate and synthesise the available research evidence on the perspectives, experiences, and priorities of late-diagnosed autistic adults concerning post-diagnostic support" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... integrative review, in which "late-diagnosed" means after age 25

The Status of Radical Behaviorism - Perspectives on Behavior Science The present article offers a brief review of the status of radical behaviorism as a defining feature of behavior analysis from the field’s origins to the contemporary era. It further examines how thes...

See behavior analysts being alarmed about ABA "falling prey to uncontrolled mentalism"--"That tendency toward default mentalism also risks minimizing the distinction between ABA and its competition in the marketplace of treatment models" link.springer.com/article/10.1... ABA in 2026, autism-relevant

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Interviews with autistics about autistic burnout, free journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... many participants "shared a sense of self-blame as a result of ability loss & difficulty with functioning at least partially connected to burnout. Some participants seemed to experience very severe distress"

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Research on camouflaging in autism, critical review, free journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "studies were inconsistent in how they defined camouflaging" "There is currently no consensus on how camouflaging is distinct from social learning, self-presentation, self-monitoring, or social anxiety"

10-Year Outcome of Community-based Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention for Autistic Children - Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Despite the pervasive inclusion of children with autism in early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI), there is limited research on the...

EIBI vs community treatment as usual (CTAU) for autism, 10-year follow-up? link.springer.com/article/10.1... group differences "favored CTAU on... cognitive, adaptive, and language functioning, as well as overall clinical severity" but "were no longer significant when controlling for baseline IQ"?

The Under-Identification of Autism in Females: A Review and Analysis of Sex-Based Scoring Differences Observed in Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) Module 3 - Journal of Autism and Develop... Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders - Emerging research highlights sex differences in autism presentation, raising questions about the validity of clinician-administered diagnostic tools...

"females were more likely to be scored as showing hand, finger, or other complex mannerisms, specific interests, and/or repetitive interests/behaviors than males with an equivalent level of autistic latent traits"? link.springer.com/article/10.1... ADOS scores for autistics & non-autistics, free

Oh dear me. Having found nothing, they pin hope on a result that is significant “before adjusting for multiple comparisons”. People: this adjustment is not optional. It’s clear nobody will ever give up on this quest.

Mixed Evidence for Impact of Early Infant Gut Microbiome and Later Development of Autism Spectrum Disorder in the MARBLES Prospective Cohort Study This study investigated the relationship between early infant gut microbiome composition and subsequent neurodevelopmental outcomes. Fecal samples from children in the markers of autism risks in babi...

"the gut microbiome in the first 7 months after birth and its relation to later development of autism, examined at 36 months of age"?--study finds "no major differences in the gut microbiome of infants who developed autism compared to those who did not" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... free

Registered: "the experiences, barriers and enablers of autistic peoples' safety across life stages and contexts"--an umbrella review www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... autistics "face serious threats to their safety such as victimisation, discrimination, violence, abuse, neglect, bullying..."

On Terms: Is There a Problem With “Problem Behavior”? A Bibliometric Prevalence Analysis - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders Purpose Language shapes scientific interpretation, clinical decision-making, and public understanding of autism. Although much attention has focused on identity-first versus person-first terminology, ...

Behavior analysts are alarmed & appalled (at great length) by what they claim is "a notable shift away from the term problem behavior" to characterize autistics link.springer.com/article/10.1... rock-bottom ABA standards, with zero evidence re accuracy & consequences of terms used in autism research

JCPP Advances | ACAMH Child Development Journal | Wiley Online Library Background Sex differences in the clinical presentation of autism are established, but evidence on early-life co-occurring physical illnesses in early-diagnosed autistic individuals is scarce. This ...

"findings indicate a consistent pattern of sex‐specific differences in early physical health among autistic children, with autistic females bearing a disproportionate burden of several neurological and cardiovascular conditions"? acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... population-based study

Priorities for change for autistic people across Europe - Molecular Autism Molecular Autism - Despite rising rates of autism prevalence, there remains a pressing need to enhance the quality of life for autistic people in Europe and around the world. We conducted the 10...

"10 most important areas that require improvement for autistic people"? European survey, free link.springer.com/article/10.1... only diagnosed autistics put "discrimination" in their top 10 (5th)--vs non-diagnosed autistics 11th, parents-carers 13th, members of autism-related organisations 12th

Conversational Topic Shifts and Topic Maintenance in Autistic and Neurotypical Children Topic maintenance and topic shifts are crucial components of conversation; however, existing research lacks a clear quantitative operationalization of these topic management skills. Previous studies ...

In conversations, autistic & typical children "produced a similar number of on-topic responses" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... but autistics "made more topic shifts, and their shifts were more drastic" ("they were perceived as interrupting the flow of the conversation more drastically")?

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Trauma & PTSD symptoms in typical vs autistic vs maltreatment-exposed 10-16 year olds, free journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... "Relative to the TD group, both the autism and maltreatment groups reported higher incidence of physical assaults, traumatic bereavements and stressful medical procedures"

Examining the Relationship Between Social Motivation and Internalizing Symptoms in Autistic People: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis The social motivation theory hypothesizes that autistic individuals' experience diminished social motivation due to reduced social reward, social orienting, and social maintaining. Low social motivat...

"results suggest that reduced social motivation may be associated with an increased vulnerability to anxiety and depression in autistic individuals"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... "important to note that we do not fully understand the directionality of these associations"

Registered: "What does the literature tell us about the factors influencing the decision to disclose an autism diagnosis?" & "What are the experiences of adults disclosing an autism diagnosis?" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... systematic review of qualitative studies

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Autistics, distress & communication journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "important to be aware of the communication function of behaviors that challenge... people require support rather than judgment or reductionistic ‘behavior management’"? but review authors ok with ABA--FCT, functional analyses?

Development is key to understanding autism: How longitudinal approaches shape our understanding of autism - Kathryn A McNaughton, Alison S Russell, Margaret Lyons, Julia Parish-Morris, Clare Harrop, ,...

On longitudinal autism research journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... "individuals recruited as non-autistic may move into the autism group over time, & those diagnosed beyond the age span of the study or those stuck on long waitlists for diagnostic evaluations would be ineligible for these designs"

Does Camouflaging Predict Functioning, Distress, and Quality of Life for Autistic Adults? It has been proposed that autistic individuals adopt camouflaging strategies to mask their autistic traits and conform to social norms, and that these camouflaging strategies have been linked to adve...

In autistic adults, "camouflaging behaviors... did not independently predict depression, psychological distress, disability, or QoL when controlling for social responsiveness and social anxiety"? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... note: "the cross-sectional design precludes causal inference"

Renewal of challenging behavior in an intensive outpatient clinic: Replication and extension to task changes Retrospective analyses have shown that renewal of challenging behavior following person or setting changes is common. This study replicates and extends prior work by evaluating renewal after a third ....

In ABA programs, "context changes may result in increased rates of challenging behavior"--most (71%-85%) autistics & others "demonstrated at least one renewal incident" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... in which "challenging behavior" includes "inappropriate vocalizations"--ABA in 2026, free

Can autism professionals hear the autism diagnosis at a preverbal stage? A first impression study Autism professionals frequently report being able to rapidly detect autism from hearing an autistic individual's vocal production, even before direct …

"clinicians specialized in diagnosing autism often say that they are able to ‘hear’ autistic children from the waiting room, even before starting the first diagnosis appointment"? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... a test using infant sounds ("the task was challenging for autism professionals")

Registered: "systematically examining how studies investigating autism, the menstrual cycle, and menopause are designed and reported, to identify strategies to inform future research and enhance methodological transparency and rigour" www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/vie... "meta-research review"

A framework for assessing the trustworthiness of scientific research findings1 | PNAS Vigorous debate has erupted over the trustworthiness of scientific research findings in a number of domains. The question “what makes research find...

On the trustworthiness (or not) of research, a framework, autism & ABA-relevant www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... e.g., "Moreover, failure to report research processes and outcomes impedes the ability to assess the research. This is particularly true when publication ignores negative and null results"

An assessment of autistic and parkinsonian movement profiles to inform selective classification algorithms - Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders Background Movement differences in autism have attracted growing attention in recent years. Anecdotally, autistic movement has been likened to that of Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Given that PD assessmen...

"Anecdotally, autistic movement has been likened to that of Parkinson’s Disease"? link.springer.com/article/10.1... but in a direct comparison of kinematic features, "autistic movement differed from parkinsonian movement in terms of speed modulation values, sub-movements, and reaction time"