Autism spectrum disorder research: knowledge mapping of progress and focus between 2011 and 2022

Abstract

BackgroundIn recent years, a large number of studies have focused on autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study used bibliometric analysis to describe the state of ASD research over the past decade and identify its trends and research fronts.MethodsStudies on ASD published from 2011 to 2022 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). Bibliometrix, CiteSpace, and VOSviewer were used for bibliometric analysis.ResultsA total of 57,108 studies were included in the systematic search, and articles were published in more than 6,000 journals. The number of publications increased by 181.7% (2,623 in 2011 and 7,390 in 2021). The articles in the field of genetics are widely cited in immunology, clinical research, and psychological research. Keywords co-occurrence analysis revealed that “causative mechanisms,” “clinical features,” and “intervention features” were the three main clusters of ASD research. Over the past decade, genetic variants associated with ASD have gained increasing attention, and immune dysbiosis and gut microbiota are the new development frontiers after 2015.ConclusionThis study uses a bibliometric approach to visualize and quantitatively describe autism research over the last decade. Neuroscience, genetics, brain imaging studies, and gut microbiome studies improve our understanding of autism. In addition, the microbe-gut-brain axis may be an exciting research direction for ASD in the future. Therefore, through visual analysis of autism literature, this paper shows the development process, research hotspots, and cutting-edge trends in this field to provide theoretical reference for the development of autism in the future.

Prototypical Autism Is Transformatively Atypical

“…Having established early on a paradigm of autism as a dire medical condition, the autism research community has been leveraging this framework to grow by leaps and bounds (Jiang et al, 2023). The size and number of research teams, the catalogs of practice guidelines, university and government grants, citations and self-congratulatory awards-all have expanded exponentially over the last fifty plus years.…”

Autistic voice: Sharing autistic children’s experiences and insights

“…This silencing of autistic voices within the field has raised ethical and epistemological concerns (Milton, 2012) and has resulted in a lack of connection and trust between autism researchers and the autism community (Chown et al, 2017;Milton & Bracher, 2013;Milton, 2014;Pellicano et al, 2014). Moreover, the legacy of non-autistic people dehumanising autistic people (Botha & Cage, 2022;Jiang et al, 2023;Rose, 2020) within psychological research and practice has compounded this loss of trust (Cage et al, 2019). This fractured connection is further evident when autistic voices have been used and misunderstood by non-autistic scholars (Milton & Bracher, 2013).…”

Systematic bibliometric and visualized analysis of research hotspots and trends in artificial intelligence in autism spectrum disorder

“…Bibliometric measurements have been utilized in earlier studies to analyze ASD ( Ernesto Martinez-Gonzalez and Andreo-Martinez, 2022 ; Li et al, 2022 ; Lu et al, 2022 ; Jiang et al, 2023 ). The topics of these studies were about ASD alone or ASD merged with other fields, however, research on the utilization of AI in ASD is limited.…”