The face of Autism research as reflected in the IMFAR looking glass

Recent overviews of autism research have yielded a number of suggestions, including: additional research with very young, and with lower functioning samples, and renewed emphasis on appropriate comparison/control groups. We reviewed the abstracts from a major autism conference (IMFAR) from 2004 to 2006 to examine these trends. We found an increase in the proportion of studies with preschool or infant participants. However, there was a decrease in studies using lower functioning samples, and an increase in studies using Mixed samples. The use of control groups generally decreased, and the use of cognitively impaired comparison groups remains low. We also found the use of the more generic term, ASD, versus DSM categories as sample descriptors increasing at IMFAR. The potential impact of these trends on limiting the generalizability of results is discussed.