Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) are increasingly used in therapeutic and educational settings to improve the well-being of autistic people. This study investigated the potential of TTRPGs to provide a safe space where autistic adults could develop relationships with others while also engaging in character and world-building. Eight autistic…

Parents of individuals with autism face many challenges in accessing appropriate services and supports for their offspring. Parents also play vital roles in advocating for their offspring's rights and needs. Furthermore, despite advocacy programs becoming increasingly common, it remains unclear how to best foster advocacy among parents of…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the youth version of the program Parents Taking Action in Bogota, Colombia, using a quasi-experimental design. We hypothesized that parents in the treatment groups would improve in levels of knowledge, empowerment, self-efficacy, and use of strategies related to topics of adolescence and…

Although global prevalence of autism has grown substantially, researchers still report inequity in access to evidence-based interventions in many low-resource settings where majority of world's children live. Capacity building of diverse stakeholders in low-resource settings has been suggested to be a potential way to mitigate low levels of access…

A recent large-scale study on the portrayal of autism in British newspapers revealed a deficit-based coverage, which concentrated on children and boys in particular, typically represented from the mothers' perspective. This follow-up study refines these representations, considering how they differ by gender and family role. We analysed 2998 text…

Recognizing higher rates of co-occurring health conditions in autistic adults and the frequent use of hospital-based health care services, this study compared rates of repeat emergency visits, repeat hospitalizations, and delayed discharges in autistic adults to other adults with and without developmental disabilities matched for age and sex,…

Early support should help autistic children lead flourishing lives. We sought to understand parents' experiences of their children's involvement in early intervention and associated research, through focus groups with 23 parents (of 22 children) enrolled in a university-affiliated service. Reflexive thematic analysis revealed four themes. Parents…

Autistic children and their caregivers in Argentina often lack access to information, resources and evidence-based interventions. Caregiver empowerment may help support families to uphold their child's rights and access suitable education and support. This study aimed to examine the perceptions on empowerment of caregivers of autistic children in…

Parent training (i.e. group-based supports and psychoeducation aimed at parent as primary agent of change) in Autism Spectrum Disorders (autism) is well-documented as an Evidence-Based Intervention designed to increase advocacy, knowledge, and empowerment. While research on Parent Training acknowledges the cultural limitations, the field lacks…

Elevated parenting stress among parents of children with autism spectrum disorder is well-documented; however, there is limited information about variability in parenting stress and relationships with parent ratings of child functioning. The aim of this study was to explore profiles of parenting stress among 100 parents of young children with…

Females often receive autism spectrum condition diagnoses later than males, leaving needs misunderstood. This study aimed to explore the lived experiences of female adults diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition in middle to late adulthood. Eleven autistic females diagnosed over the age of 40 years completed semi-structured interviews,…

EarlyBird and EarlyBird Plus are parent education and training programmes designed by the UK National Autistic Society in 1997 and 2003, having been delivered to more than 27,000 families in 14 countries. These group-based programmes aim to (1) support parents immediately after diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, (2) empower parents,…

Research ethics is an important part of any study. Ethics goes beyond ethics committee approval and consent documents. It addresses broader issues of respect, inclusion, and empowerment in the everyday context of research. This article focuses on everyday aspects of research ethics for studies involving autistic participants. It draws on a review…

This study examined maintenance of treatment effects in a culturally tailored parent education program for Latinx families of children with autism spectrum disorder using a behavior maintenance framework. In a two-site randomized waitlist-control study, we compared differences in parent and child outcomes across three timepoints using linear mixed…

Despite the clear need for post-diagnostic parent/carer education and training in autism spectrum disorder, the evidence base is small, particularly in low-resource settings. Furthermore, few studies have examined the feasibility of intervention implementation. Here, we performed a comparative feasibility study of two Parent Education and Training…