Community Newsletter: Controversial 'cost of autism' paper, 'doctors' speak,' double empathy explained

Chelsey Coombs
2021 Spectrum  
Hello, and welcome to this week's Community Newsletter! I'm your host, Chelsey B. Coombs, Spectrum's engagement editor. A new paper in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders caused a huge uproar on Twitter this week. "Rising prevalence, the shift from child to adult-dominated costs, the transfer of costs from parents onto government, and the soaring total costs raise pressing policy questions and demand an urgent focus on prevention strategies," the researchers wrote. The first
more » ... on the paper is Mark Blaxill, chief financial officer of the Holland Center, a Minnesota-based day treatment program for autistic children and young adults, and editor-at-large of the site "Age of Autism," which often publishes anti-vaccination content. Many autism researchers took to Twitter to denounce the study. Michelle Dawson, an autism researcher at Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies in Montreal, Canada, wrote that the work was "baseless" and "egregious." "In the absence of a comprehensive plan to either raise revenue or prevent autism... the costs of autism represent a serious threat to the economic future of the U.S"? https://t.co/BK4HOj9AwS published by JADD in 2021, baseless, egregious -Noah Sasson (@Noahsasson
doi:10.53053/ehsz4042 fatcat:iroigbdlnjasxn37ds2rpgakga