Currently, the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (henceforth "autism") is 1 in 36, an increasing trend from previous estimates. In 2015, the United States adopted a new version (International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision) of the World Health Organization coding system, a standard for classifying medical conditions. Our…

The aim of the study was to investigate mathematics anxiety in autistic school-aged boys compared with non-autistic peers, by considering the distinction between trait and state components of mathematics anxiety. The study involved 110 boys aged between 8 and 16 years old: 50 autistic participants without intellectual disability and 60…

A growing literature suggests that there is cross-cultural variation in levels of autism-related stigma, which may partially be explained by differences in cultural orientation or autism-related knowledge between countries. This literature has relied heavily on self-report measures of explicit attitudes towards autism; little research has examined…

Autistic children often have comorbid somatic problems. However, in adulthood, this has been much less studied. We investigated the associations between autistic symptoms and irritable bowel syndrome, food allergy, pain, and fatigue in adulthood and examined sex and life-course differences herein. A total of 35,048 adults aged from 18 to 90 from…

Several validated adult autism symptom screening tools exist; however, there are concerns about the validity of instruments in adults who self-identify and those who have an autism diagnosis. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the RAADS-R and RAADS-14 across gender, autism diagnosis and autistic identity, and age among a sample of…

Adaptive behavior is paramount for independent living and is varyingly impaired in different neurodevelopmental disorders. This study aimed to investigate differences in adaptive behavior between children with autism spectrum disorder and social communication disorder, two conditions characterized by deficits in social communication. Data from 232…

Evidence suggests increased mortality rates among autistic individuals. However, risks of mortality, including natural-cause, suicide, and accident mortalities, among autistic individuals remain unclear. Among the entire Taiwanese population (N = 29,253,529), between 2003 and 2017, 45,398 autistic individuals were identified and 1:4 matched to…

Camouflaging is hypothesized to play an important role in developing mental health difficulties. But this might not be true for everyone. It remains unclear for whom camouflaging is associated with mental health. In this preregistered study (AsPredicted #45095), we investigated whether (1) camouflaging and mental health were associated and (2) we…

Keeping a conversation going is the social glue of friendships. The DSM criteria for autism list difficulties with back-and-forth conversation but does not necessitate that all autistic children will be equally impacted. We carried out three studies (two pre-registered) with verbally fluent school children (age 5-9 years) to investigate how…

Little is currently known about the autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-related difficulties of females narrowly below the ASD diagnostic threshold and whether the disorder conceptualisation should be broadened to capture their presentations. We extracted fine-grained information from the assessment reports of 222 children who were either diagnosed…

The capacity of the workforce lags behind the current demand for timely autism diagnostic assessment. Primary care providers (PCPs) are well-positioned to diagnose autism at earlier ages than providers from other disciplines. Thus, bolstering PCPs' diagnostic capabilities has been the focus of many recent capacity-building initiatives. Using data…

Being looked at is an important communicative signal, and attenuated responses to such direct gaze have been suggested as an early sign of autism. Using live eye tracking, we examined whether direct gaze elicits different gaze responses in infants at ages 10, 14 and 18 months with and without later autism in real-life interaction. The sample…

Few instruments screen for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among kindergarteners and older children. The Autism Screen for Kids and Youth (ASKY) is a 30-item parental questionnaire for 4- to 18-year-old children and adolescents available in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. We examined the sensitivity, specificity, and temporal stability of the Hebrew…

The timing of autism spectrum disorder detection in research and clinical practice is characterised by substantial heterogeneity ranging from infancy to school age. In this study, we examined the age of diagnosis and its associated individual and socio-familial factors in Chinese children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. A sample of 1235…

An earlier diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder might lead to an earlier intervention, yet knowledge and awareness of autism spectrum disorder in Latin America and Caribbean Countries are limited. A later autism spectrum disorder diagnosis has been associated with negative consequences, as it might imply later access to services. This study aims…