Introduction to Special Issue ASD in Adulthood: Comorbidity and Intervention.
Adult autism intervention evidence is still thin—treat any new program as experimental until solid data arrive.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Whiting et al. (2015) wrote an editorial that introduces a special issue on autistic adults.
They did not run new experiments. Instead they scanned the adult autism literature and listed what is missing.
They found almost no strong studies on treatments for adults with autism.
What they found
The authors found that research on autistic adults is scarce and often poorly designed.
Most autism studies still focus on children, leaving huge gaps for anyone over 22.
They warn that clinics are flying blind when they try to help adults.
How this fits with other research
Bottema-Beutel et al. (2023) later checked every trial for 14-22-year-olds and agreed: the work is weak and ignores side effects.
Davidovitch et al. (2018) stepped in with a systematic review showing autistic adults do report lower quality of life, but the tools used were built for non-autistic people.
Broadstock et al. (2007) had already shown the same problem for medicines: only five small short drug trials existed for teens and adults.
Together these papers do not clash; they stack. Each later review fills a slice of the gap the 2015 editorial first mapped.
Why it matters
If you write goals for adults or plan services, treat every adult autism claim as tentative. Demand study details, sample sizes, and side-effect data before you adopt new tools. Push funders and journals to study transition-age and older adults with the same rigor we give to kids.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
In the seven decades since Kanner first published his original reports on individuals with autism, there have been many thousands of publications on the topic. From early case studies, the field has moved on to increasingly sophisticated studies of animal models, brain structures and functions, genetic models, diagnostic systems, and intervention trials. However, one area remains woefully under researched—life for adults with autism. Several recent reports have highlighted the very small number of publications specifically focusing on adults (Bishop-Fitzpatrick et al., 2013; Henninger and Taylor, 2013; Piven et al., 2011; Shattuck et al., 2011). Systematic reviews have also noted the poor quality of much of the research that has been conducted, particularly with regard to intervention (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) 2012; Taylor et al., 2012).
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2015 · doi:10.1177/1362361315595582