Autism, ADHD and Learning Disability Research—What’s New in September
In this month’s research roundup, Ann Memmott explores new studies on Autism, ADHD, dyslexia and learning disability. Covering topics such as emotional responses in young people, social touch, workplace experiences, discrimination, and healthcare inequalities, alongside reflections on misleading press stories and enforced socialisation.
Paracetamol and vaccines – the recent potential misinformation from the USA
This article may be useful for anyone who is concerned about having vaccinations or taking paracetamol, after the recent statements from the USA have had extensive coverage in the press and other media.
The article makes clear that there is no known evidence to show a link between Autism and either paracetamol or vaccination, and people should continue to take sensible advice from their medical teams, as they would normally.
‘Emotional responding’? Or a very understandable reaction to appalling experiences?
Pavlopoulou and team ask 57 ADHD young people about experiences that have left them upset. In many instances, in care settings or psychological therapies the young people are told that their responses are unreasonable. But, are they? From whose perspective, and does it take into account genuinely different ways to respond to major situations, for and ADHD individuals? Vital to read the personal accounts and underlying research on the subject, in order to make progress in healing past trauma and listening with compassion to what has occurred.
Existing accounts of emotional dysregulation in Autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are typically based on external adult observations anchored in neurotypical notions of emotional responding. These often fail to contextualise people's emotional responses within the upsetting experiences they face… Autism – and ADHD – specific nuances were found within these themes.
Pavlopoulou, G., Chandler, S., Lukito, S., Kakoulidou, M., Jackson, I., Ly, E., ... & Wilson, A. (2025). Upsetting experiences in the lives of young people: A qualitative analysis of accounts of adolescents diagnosed with attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder and/or Autism. JCPP Advances, e70038.
https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jcv2.70038
Adults with a learning disability are on average dying 20 years earlier than the general population
The latest LeDeR report (2023) has just been published, looking at avoidable deaths for people with a learning disability. Stark findings, especially for Asian individuals, for example, but important for us all to consider when we set our expectations for what a good life looks like. One need to be alive in order to live it, I’m sure we can agree.
37 per cent of cases reported some form of delay in care or treatment, while 28 percent reported instances where diagnosis and treatment guidelines were not met… those from minority ethnic backgrounds had a significantly lower median age of death. Between January 2021 and December 2023, the median age of death in those from Asian and Asian British backgrounds reported a median age of death of 43 – a 20 year difference when compared to those from White backgrounds… Researchers also analysed the data available for people with a severe or profound learning disability, approximately one third of the reported cases since 2021 fall into this category. Analysis established that those individuals have a younger median age of death (57 vs 64) and are more likely to have a treatable cause of death due to conditions such as pneumonia or seizures, while those with mild or moderate learning disability were more likely to have preventable causes of death, such as those related to heart disease or cancer.
O’Dowd, A. (2025). Adults with a learning disability are dying 20 years earlier than the general population, audit finds. https://www.bmj.com/content/390/bmj.r1864
Social touch, for people. What do we know?
Mello and team asked 64 adults and 64 non-adults about their views on social touch. It’s an important topic, because so many people assume that a handshake, social hug, cheek-kissing or putting a hand on a shoulder or upper arm is a gesture of friendliness and bonding. Respecting the needs of family, friends and colleagues is vital, though. Whilst there will be a lot of variation in what individuals prefer, it’s good practice to always ask before using touch in social encounters.
Social touch, like hugging or handshakes, is an important aspect of how most people interact with other individuals and plays a communicative and affiliative role from early in development. However, information about how people experience social touch is limited. In a previous study, we found that adults reported feeling less erogeneity, pleasure, and appropriateness for social touch, compared to non- adults and that sex attributed at birth played a differential role in these feelings. To better understand the underlying causes of these differences in social touch experiences, here we examined individual characteristics that might be linked to them. We asked and non-adults to complete questionnaires about their social and non-social touch perception, their social anxiety and their ability to recognize and describe their own feelings. Our results showed that the tendency to avoid social touch was stronger in participants and that this tendency was, in turn, connected to lower feelings of erogeneity, pleasantness, and appropriateness for social touch. These findings suggest that social touch avoidance is a central dimension connecting lower-level touch-related aspects, such as hyper-sensitivity, to higher-level ones, such as erogeneity, pleasantness, and appropriateness of touch.
Mello, M., Fusaro, M., Aglioti, S.M. et al. Centrality of Touch Avoidance in Social Touch Experiences in Autism. J Autism Dev Disord (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-025-07053-x
What training on Autism do social workers have? What might help them in everyday practice?
Good quality, modern Autism and neurodiversity training is vital for all involved in the care review processes, including the input of wider hospital and community-based staff.
Heslop and team asked a variety of social workers about the Autism training they had received thus far. Concerningly,
The participants explained that they had received some training about Autism and worked with people as part of their employment. Though the training was generally well received it was ‘pretty basic’ and that was no ‘formal Autism training’ and the training was ‘not from a social [work] perspective’ and it tended to take the form of ‘pockets of training, but never anything consistent right across the board.
What can we offer to social workers who are keen to know what may work well for their clients? Guthrie, Doherty & team offer the SPACE framework as an -led approach which is gaining considerable interest. It enables people to consider needs through the five headings of Sensory, Predictability, Acceptance, Communication and Empathy, and was developed by Doctors. There is a full preprint version of that paper available on Google Scholar.
The general information paper about Autism for social workers is also linked below (BASW guide).
Doherty, M., McCowan, S., & Shaw, S. C. (2023). SPACE: a novel framework for meeting the needs of people in healthcare settings. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 84(4), 1-9. https://www.magonlinelibrary.com/doi/full/10.12968/hmed.2023.0006
Guthrie, J., Doherty, M., Shaw, S. C., O’Reilly, M., Ní Chinnéide, E., & Archard, P. J. (2025). SPACE (S) in social work. Practice, 37(3), 213-230. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09503153.2024.2423405
Heslop, P., & Bushell, M. (2023). Reporting findings from an exploratory study of social workers’ perceptions about Autism training. The British Journal of Social Work, 53(6), 3218-3236. https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/article/53/6/3218/7100835
Social Work with People: A BASW Practice Guide https://basw.co.uk/sites/default/files/resources/basw_social_work_with__people_guide.pdf
Working from home, for people.
Good to see this paper from Schepens and team, who interviewed twelve adults (ADHD, Autism or dyslexia) about the advantages and disadvantages experienced by employees who are working from home. Plenty of personal perspectives in it, including the benefits of not having to mask as much, being able to wear clothing that is comfortable, and being able to pace themselves in improved ways.
Schepens, W. E. J. M. Exploring the Risks and Opportunities of Working from Home: The Experiences of Workers. https://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=186854
Strengths and talents in people.
Lampinen and team challenge our expectations about ‘deficits’. Asking a variety of individuals, a huge range of strengths were reported, including in areas such as planning skills and interpersonal skills, where common belief is that people will always need support.
Many adults express dissatisfaction with the Autism diagnostic process, and concerns have been cited regarding the lack of neurodiversity-affirming assessment methods. In part, this is due to instruments framing behaviours as symptoms causing impairment, overlooking potential benefits. Systematically measuring strengths and talents during assessment may inform diagnosis and support planning in a more neurodiversity-affirming manner… Participants included 127 legally independent adults… Themes emerging from the qualitative responses included Cognitive/Executive Functioning (61%), Character Strengths (55%), Creative/Artistic (52%), Academic (33%), and Interpersonal (30%).
Lampinen, L. A., Singer, J., Wang, X., VanHook, B., Wilkinson, E., & Bal, V. H. (2025). Self-reported strengths and talents of adults. Autism, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613251364361
Do general hospitals record that their patient is Autistic? Less than half of the time.
Baksh and team looked at the records of more than 4000 adults who had general hospital admissions, from 2007 through to 2023. The hospital teams hadn’t recorded that they were Autistic, in more than half the recent admissions. It was worse in 2007, but I’m not sure that is a great consolation. Men were more likely to be correctly recorded as Autistic, and the same is true for those who also had an intellectual disability and for those with more hospital admissions. A concern therefore that many women are being missed from being correctly identified on ward records.
Clearly, we need to do a lot to ensure that hospitals ask the right questions, because it is vital for healthcare outcomes that people can access the right, respectful, appropriate care. It enables teams to give proper consideration for sensory needs, social communication differences, and to monitor for potential unusual reactions to some medications.
Baksh, A., Mueller, C., Strydom, A., & Sheehan, R. (2025). Recording of Autism in English general hospitals between 2007 and 2023: cohort study using data linkage. Autism in Adulthood. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/recording-of-autism-in-english-general-hospitals-between-2007-and
Children & young people, and discrimination – race/ethnicity, learning disability and other factors.
Menezes and team looked at the results from a parent questionnaire, about more than 2000 children and young people age 6-17. Relevant when considering how many challenges younger patients may face in everyday life, and the impact of these on their mental wellbeing and physical health.
Results demonstrated a relationship between minoritized racial and ethnic background and increased likelihood of discrimination due to race/ethnicity and health condition/disability. Relationships between older age and greater odds of race/ethnicity and health condition/disability discrimination experiences were also found. Furthermore, “more severe” Autism, intellectual disability, and challenging behaviour were associated with increased odds of health condition/disability discrimination.
Menezes, M., Linde, J., Howard, M. et al. Associations Among Demographic and Clinical Characteristics and Discrimination Experiences of Youth. J Autism Dev Disord (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-025-07019-z
Does enforced socialisation during breaks improve lives?
Alferz-Pastor and team look at past studies into this topic and begin their paper with a long list of alleged deficits of people. There is no mention of modern research showing social skills are genuinely different, or that they tend to socialise well with other people, for example.
The team alleges that, “Neurotypical peers act as positive models of social behaviour”, basing their evidence on papers as far back as 2009 and failing to consider why the lived experiences of people include extensive accounts of being bullied and ostracised by neurotypical peers in social gatherings of all kinds.
The past research papers focused on enforcing play with other children, marking this as a success, and likewise regarded normalisation of social skills so that they resembled those of other children as a mark of a good social skills programme. The voices, views and experiences of the children and young people do not feature, and there is no consideration of adverse effects from sustained masking and inauthentic play. The studies did not do any long term follow up to find out if the alleged new friends stayed around longer than the study.
Whilst this study looks at schools, there are parallels to be found in goals set for some people on mental health wards. Ensure that when you are reviewing a person’s progress, their need for solitary ‘recovery time’, and their innate social skill set, are respected.
Alferez-Pastor, M., Rodríguez-Ferrer, J.M., Manzano-León, A. et al. School Recess to Promote Social Interaction Between Students with ASD and Their Peers: A Systematic Review Study. Rev J Autism Dev Disord (2025).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-025-00523-z
Book recommendation – ADHD, life and money:
“Mad About Money” – by Maddy Alexander-Grout (Wiley, 2025)
A very readable book by Maddy, talking people through her journey with discovering she is ADHD, dyspraxic and more. The book covers how to handle disasters with money, sorting out doable strategies for working for yourself, and handling out the challenges of everyday problems.
