Autism Research - What’s New in June 2023?

This research roundup picks out some of the current big debates on autistic lives, and showcases some of the research from teams making an impact on improving the quality of life for autistic individuals, especially children and young people. 

Content Warning: the 5th and last article discussed contain content that some may find upsetting or triggering.

Autistic University Graduates – What did they study?  What jobs did they go to afterwards?

Vincent & Ralston (2023) got the University data from 2012-2018 and searched for some answers to the questions around autistic university students, their choice of subjects, and where they went after University.   I have summarised some of their findings with the graph below. The myth is that nearly all autistic people study STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths).  Most are pushed in those directions because of the myths, so there’s some truth to that.  Looking at the numbers, the most popular choice was Arts, with studies such as communications, languages, social studies and history well represented.  The employment destinations soon after graduating show the same types of patterns, overall, and are available in the supplementary data in that link. The data for autistic women shows that very few go into STEM after they graduate, preferring a wide range of other topics.  There is also some information on salaries, but these represent information very soon after graduation so will need further work.  This is an important piece of research, and I hope that the team continue to research this topic.

Autistic Children and Empathy

Li and team (2023) have studied some young autistic children to find out how good they are at empathising with nonautistic people. They chose children age around 4 at the start, nearly all of whom were boys, and studied their observable empathy for around four years. With the common belief that autistic people lack empathy, their findings are important.  Good to see them reflecting carefully on the work of academics such as Milton and Crompton, and discussing Double Empathy Theory. They also asked parents for their own views on the children’s empathy skills. The team are clear that autistic children feel empathy and get better at doing so in ways that can be spotted by nonautistic people. I would recommend reading the ending thoughts.

Autistic Children and Changes in Spoken Language Over Time

Broome and team (2023) studied 22 young autistic children to find out more about their spoken language skills, and how these changed over time.  The team appear to be only counting words produced by mouth, rather than typed or via other assistive communication. This is quite a small study, and the team are careful to say that much more research is needed. They are right; despite nearly 100 years of autism research having taken place, there is almost no research on how autistic children’s speech and other communication skills develop over time.    This is a useful study for speech & language teams, and indeed for many others, and it will be interesting to see whether bigger studies can tell us more about this.

Movement Difficulties for Autistic People

Miller and team (2023) look at movement difficulties (‘motor problems’) for autistic individuals.  These can also extend to being able to produce mouth-words, being able to co-ordinate eating food, and many other areas of life.  This has not been well researched until fairly recently, and there is a lot more that needs to happen to fully understand and support autistic people with these areas.  Occupational Therapists in particular need a good understanding of the likelihood of movement difficulty, as do schools and other settings who may think that a child or young person is just being difficult, or not putting enough effort in.

The team note that autistic people have been asking for proper thought around movement difficulties for a long time, and they urge people to consider this fully when assessing autistic individuals.

Content Warning: Abuse

Adverse Childhood Experiences for Autistic and Nonautistic Children

Andrzejewski and team (2023) carried out this important research, and reached some deeply concerning findings about the levels of Adverse Childhood Experiences for autistic children & young people, and for their parents.

A third of the autistic children had experienced emotional abuse.  Almost a quarter had experienced physical abuse, and almost a quarter had experienced sexual abuse.  One in five had witnessed domestic violence.  A third had lived in a household where there was substance abuse, and nearly one in five had experience of someone in the house being in prison or other secure settings.  The figures for the nonautistic children were vastly lower.  The reasons were often societal, with families forced into poverty and into unsafe living spaces, for example.  When we are discussing ‘behaviour’ relating to autism, how much of it is distress from very real traumatic situations at home? This is a bracing read, but vital if we are to move away from the notion that autism is the cause of ‘challenging behaviour’ that must be silenced, and into a trauma-informed and caring approach which seeks to truly listen and to enable healing.

Autistic Children and Hearing Sensitivity/Differences

Lau and team (2022) explored the hearing sensitivities and differences so often reported for autistic individuals. The research showed that 7 out of 10 autistic children had difficulties with hearing sensitivity or other auditory challenges, and this was strongly linked to behaviours of concern.  Another paper that is well worth a read, as a solution to auditory situations may lead to a lessening of distress behaviour or misunderstandings resulting from not being able to hear instructions well enough.

ABA and Normalisation of Autistic Children & Young People?

The ABA industry often asserts that the new, modern form of Applied Behaviour Analysis does not seek to normalise autistic children, and would not enforce eye contact, for example.  As is known from other research, eye contact is particularly exhausting for autistic individuals and often prevents rather than enhances good communication & listening skills.  Yet, this new article (2022) from the ABA industry shows teams using ABA to enforce eye contact from autistic children in the classroom, as well as normalisation of other social skills in ways that do not appear to respect the genuine differences in autistic social communication.  If using interventions for autism, I would recommend that teams check very carefully for instances of enforced normalisation being added to the child’s programme for their day, and being very clear with teams that this is not appropriate for autistic individuals.

Content Warning: sexual realtionships

Use of Robots in Intimate Encounters for Autistic People and People with a Learning Disability

Pasciuto and team (2023) discuss whether robots have a place in providing sex for some autistic people and some people with a learning disability.  The paper attempts some good discussion on this point, but this is clearly a controversial area of debate, and one that should be led by autistic people and people with a learning disability.  Concerns mentioned by the authors include the dehumanisation of sexual relationships, the potential for objectification of women (where robots shaped like women are used), and the potential for emulation of sexual slavery, since the robot is in no position to fail to consent.  These are of course general concerns that apply to the subject, rather than specifically to the groups of people in question.  Important to have this discussion, given the increasing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the tendency of a few researchers elsewhere to think that autistic people are robotic, therefore must all enjoy robots; it is fair to say that this is not an accurate viewpoint.