Top 10 Responses to the Commentaries on Dixon, Reed, Smith et al. (2015).

Cox et al. (2015) wrote a reply to critics. The critics said ABA faculty publish too little. The authors listed ten counterpoints. They used words, not new data.

The paper is a defense, not a study. It says publication counts miss context. Small teaching schools differ from big research labs. Rankings can mislead.

Whitehouse et al. (2014) give numbers. Only 8.8 % of autism conference talks later become papers. This supports the worry that much CE content is never peer-checked.

Leaf (2025) moves the goal posts. It says counting papers is not enough. Programs must also fix classes, supervision, and diversity training. The 2015 defense now feels partial.

Conners et al. (2019) add another layer. A survey of 575 certificants says current diversity training is thin. So even if faculty publish, students may still be under-prepared.

When you pick a CE course or hire a new grad, look past the school’s rank. Ask for the actual peer-reviewed work behind the slides. Ask how the program teaches multicultural skills and ongoing supervision. One quick step: before you sign up for a conference workshop, search the presenter’s name on PubMed. If you find no peer-reviewed articles, treat the talk as a bright idea, not solid science.