The two psychologists share tips to help autism researchers adopt established methods and make their work more transparent and reproducible.

The study, which investigated a microRNA’s links to autism, appears to contain duplicated and fabricated data, according to research integrity analysts. Those issues reflect a larger problem in the literature.

Scientists must focus on the importance of representative study samples and of engaging with diverse autism community members.

The principal investigator of the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health wants to encourage more researchers to study physical health issues in autistic children and adults.

Drugs such as LSD act primarily on the serotonin system, which is implicated in autism — and some autistic people who experiment with psychoactive compounds report enhanced social connections, among other benefits. But researchers have more questions than answers.

After a months-long review, the United Kingdom’s Health Research Authority upheld an earlier ethics approval for the embattled autism genetics study.

The “tortured phrases” — strangely worded paraphrases of established terms — may be the work of software that attempts to disguise plagiarism.

Genetics research has largely failed to generate concrete benefits for autistic people, and its values and goals are due for reassessment, Tabor says.

Previous Spectrum reporting called out this paper and several others — all on unrelated subjects — that mysteriously cite autism papers.

Early interventions for autism lack solid data. The source of this problem is murky but may stem from ongoing debates about evidence quality and entrenched conflicts of interest within the field.