Editorial

Citation

Chester, V. and Tromans, S. (2023), "Editorial", Advances in Autism, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 1-1. https://doi.org/10.1108/AIA-01-2023-077

Welcome to Volume 9, Issue 1 of Advances in Autism. In our editorial, we report on the content of the new issue.

Issue content

The first article, by Robinson and Young, reports the findings of a qualitative study exploring trainers’ experiences when delivering parent training. Trainers report parents experiencing different types of painful triggers, which can impact on their coping capacity and stress levels.

The second article, by Poorkhorshidi et al., is a qualitative study exploring the stigma experiences of family caregivers of autistic children in Iran. The authors report that caregivers experience a stigma directly related to their autistic relative, which can present an additional challenge in their daily lives. They also suggest that this stigma may be partially attributable to a lack of societal awareness about autism.

The third article, by Murphy and Broyd, reports the findings of a clinician’s survey relating to experiences of suspected feigning of autism in adults. Around half of survey respondents reported situations where they suspected feigning of autism, describing indicators including descriptions of vague examples, inconsistent presentations and inconsistency with the patient’s developmental history.

The fourth article, by Watkins and Angus-Leppan, is a systematic review related to determining whether there has been a worldwide increase in autism incidence over time. They report a substantial increase in diagnosis rates over decent decades, and the authors discuss whether this corresponds to a true rise in autism incidence, or whether there are other explanations for this finding.

The fifth article, by Cai et al., was a survey investigating the financial circumstances of autistic adults living in Australia. The findings from survey correspondents suggest that autistic adults living in Australia are at considerable financial disadvantage when compared with their nonautistic peers.

The sixth article, by Goñi-Cervera et al., reports findings from an exploratory study pertaining to the strategies used by autistic students when solving multiplication and division problems. The authors report on the related strategies used and potential associated difficulties, which can provide a basis to inform teachers working with autistic students.

The final article, by Kaur Sidhu and Greene, is a scoping review of disparities and barriers to health care experienced by autistic adults. They report that core features of autism, such as differences in social communication, are barriers for autistic adults with respect to their health care. The authors call for changes in health care to improve the care of autistic adults, including developing new interventions, improving the training of health-care professionals and improving the accessibility of health-care institutions.

We hope that you had a happy holidays in 2022, and very much hope that you enjoy this issue, our first of 2023.