Spectrum: Autism Research News

Research roundup

• Shoe-tying is a long-time challenge for some autistic people, but a video teaching tool can help. Developmental Neurorehabilitation
• The active chemical in the drug ecstasy elicited “rapid and durable” improvements in social anxiety in autistic adults in a small pilot study. Psychopharmacology
• Are there really only four personality types? See what you think. Nature Human Behaviour
• Young people with special healthcare needs don’t receive adequate support as they transition from adolescence to adulthood. Pediatrics
• Researchers describe four cases of co-occurring autism and narcolepsy. Sleep Medicine
• Adverse childhood experiences are linked to unmet healthcare needs among children with autism. The Journal of Pediatrics
• Commercial laboratories offering autism-related genetic sequencing show huge variation in the number of genes assessed, with little overlap between tests. Genomic Medicine
• Researchers call for greater precision in describing conditions that commonly co-exist with autism, to distinguish among shared causes, cause and effect, and unknown associations. Autism Research

Science and society

• A symposium on the use of psychedelics in psychiatry is scheduled to take place in Stockholm in October. Colloquium on Psychedelic Psychiatry
• Are you a scientist on Twitter and hoping to build your audience? The #NewbieScience hashtag was invented to help you out. Twitter
• The National Autistic Society in the United Kingdom has opened up nominations for its seventh annual Autism Professionals Awards. Charity Today
• The concept of “Time’s Up” in medicine — a reference to zero tolerance for sexual and gender-based harassment — is both “urgent and aspirational,” according to this op-ed. The New England Journal of Medicine
• Meanwhile, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, under pressure to make changes, has established a policy for revoking the ‘fellow’ status of members who engage in misconduct, including sexual harassment. Inside Higher Ed
• Could you publish a research paper every five days? Here are some defining characteristics of researchers who do. Nature
• Neuroscientist Francesca Happé says thousands of autistic girls and women in the U.K. may go undiagnosed because autism is perceived as a “male condition.” The Guardian
• The arrest and overnight incarceration of an autistic man for allegedly touching a woman’s chest has led to a petition in Malaysia calling for the police to handle people on the spectrum differently. The Sun Daily
• The National Science Foundation has unveiled the “strictest yet” policy by a U.S. government science agency addressing harassment by researchers who receive funding from the agency. Nature

Autism and the arts

• The title of Peter Hotez’s new book says it all: “Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad.” Twitter
• The new “Predator” movie is drawing some unimpressed reviews, not least because of its plotline involving a character with autism. Salon
• Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions is making a documentary about autism based on “The Reason I Jump,” the best-selling memoir by Naoki Higashida. Variety

Publishing

• To increase transparency about research, Nature Communications now requires more detail about data and study design when researchers submit papers for peer review. Nature Communications
• The New England Journal of Medicine has declined to retract a published study despite evidence of plagiarism by one of its authors. STAT

Job moves

• Developmental psychologist Uta Frith, a big name in autism research, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Lincoln in the U.K. University of Lincoln