Suitability of the -5 social anxiety disorder severity scale for autistic adults.

Mental health measures used with autistic adults are often only evaluated for use with non-autistic adults, which may cause inaccurate measurement. This is important when measuring social anxiety disorder as some features overlap with social characteristics of autism. This study evaluated one self-report questionnaire measure of social anxiety disorder, the Severity Measure for Social Anxiety Disorder.

"I'm the Family Ringmaster and Juggler": Autistic Parents' Experiences of Parenting During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: Little is known about autistic parenthood. The literature that exists suggests that autistic parents can find it difficult to manage the everyday demands of parenting and domestic life. While emerging research has also highlighted more positive parenting experiences, greater understanding of autistic parenthood is needed.

"It just fits my needs better": Autistic students and parents' experiences of learning from home during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background And Aims: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to people's lives, especially for families, whose children have been taken out of schools during lockdown restrictions and required to learn from home. Little is known, however, about the perceived impact of the lockdown restrictions on the educational experiences of autistic children and young people - a group whose conventional schooling experiences are already often challenging. In this study, we sought to (1) understand these experiences from the perspectives of autistic young people and their parents, and (2) identify the underlying sources of positive experiences at this challenging time, in order to inform the ways in which autistic children might flourish at school in more normal times.

From ivory tower to inclusion: Stakeholders' experiences of community engagement in Australian autism research.

Autistic people, and other community stakeholders, are gaining increasing recognition as valuable contributors to autism research, resulting in a growing corpus of participatory autism research. Yet, we know little about the ways in which stakeholders practice and experience community engagement in autism research. In this study, we interviewed 20 stakeholders (academics, autistic people, family members/careers, research students, and service providers) regarding their experiences of community engagement in Australian autism research.

Annual Research Review: Shifting from 'normal science' to neurodiversity in autism science.

Since its initial description, the concept of autism has been firmly rooted within the conventional medical paradigm of child psychiatry. Increasingly, there have been calls from the autistic community and, more recently, nonautistic researchers, to rethink the way in which autism science is framed and conducted. Neurodiversity, where autism is seen as one form of variation within a diversity of minds, has been proposed as a potential alternative paradigm.

COVID-19, social isolation and the mental health of autistic people and their families: A qualitative study.

In this study, we show that autistic people and their families have found it very difficult to deal with the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Autistic and non-autistic researchers spoke to 144 people, including 44 autistic adults, 84 parents of autistic children and 16 autistic young people (12-18 years old). We asked them about their everyday lives and mental health during lockdown.

Participatory autism research: Early career and established researchers' views and experiences.

'Participatory autism research' refers to ways of involving autistic people and their allies (e.g. family members) in making decisions about research.

'I'm not just a guinea pig': Academic and community perceptions of participatory autism research.

means working together () with the community that is affected by research to make decisions about that research. Participatory research is common in some fields, but it is still rare in autism research. In this study, we wanted to find out how Australian autism researchers and community members feel about participatory research.

A Portfolio Analysis of Autism Research Funding in Australia, 2008-2017.

Autism research funding across the world has disproportionately been invested in biological and genetic research, despite evidence that these topics are not prioritized by community members. We sought to determine whether a similar pattern was evident in Australia's autism research funding landscape between 2008 and 2017, by analysing the nation's portfolio of autism research investments. We also examined whether there was any change in this pattern of funding since the establishment in 2013 of the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC).

Anxiety-related symptomatology in young children on the autism spectrum.

Anxiety symptomatology is frequently reported in autistic children, and the prevalence of anxiety disorder is estimated at around 40%. However, most studies have focused upon children of age 8 years or above, so little is known about early signs of anxiety in younger children with autism. This study sought to describe anxiety-related symptomatology in 95 5- to 6-year-old autistic children using the Anxiety Scale for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.