Autism has major implications for information processing in many cognitive, emotional, sensory and motor domains. On the one hand, it is fair to say that life is experienced by each autistic individual in a unique, “personalized” way, because these implications profoundly differ from person to person, On the other hand, unitary features underlie the shared behaviors ultimately yielding DSM-5 criteria for the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Differences (ASD). The effort necessary to disentangle this complexity is daunting. Within this framework, the scientific community is increasingly recognizing the prominent role that researchers who themselves have received an autism diagnosis can indeed play. At first, this role was mainly limited to inclusion and advocacy, but it has now become clear that autistic investigators can do a lot more for autism research. Their “insider’s view” of the autistic mind, added onto knowledge derived from their studies and training, can pave the path toward the development of better measures, novel experimental designs, and creative solutions, able to promote a deeper understanding of autism by the entire scientific community, and to better aid and support autistic individuals.

This Research Topic aims to host experimental studies, review articles, case reports, and commentaries by autistic investigators. Contributions focused on advocacy alone will be considered for publication, but are not the primary focus of this Research Topic, which will prioritize the following areas:

• The development and validation of novel psychometric tools ecologically closer to the autistic trait of interest.
• The development of experimental designs more functional and respectful of autistic features.
• The development of biomarkers which may more closely reflect autistic cognition and functioning, including novel tasks for eye tracking, electrophysiology, and fMRI.
• The development of new therapeutic strategies or experimental studies of strategies already in use but not sufficiently evidence-based (for example, compression garments to reduce anxiety and irritability).
• Autistic sensory perception (external & internal sensing): its main features; relationship with anxiety; affective state and other comorbidities; psychometric or physiological measures; experimental methods; etc.
• Difficulties in sensory-motor-cognitive-emotional integration: passing from single tasks to multiple coincident tasks.
• Strengths in visuospatial orientation,
• Action planning and execution; motor and visuo-motor coordination; strategies best fit to address motor coordination disorder when present in an autistic child.
• Priorities in attention focusing and attention maintenance.
• Verbal language (receptive and expressive): its role in the life of an autistic individual; most appropriate and/or novel strategies to stimulate verbal language and/or to apply augmentative and alternative communication.
• The process of decision making: priorities, target selection, action vs inhibition.
• Desire for order and predictability: similarities and differences with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• Anxiety in children, adolescents and adults with autism: primary triggers; subjective feelings and objective markers of anxiety; preventive and treatment strategies in children, adolescents, and adults.

This groundbreaking research initiative will give investigators diagnosed with autism the unique opportunity to advance autism research, by providing deeper phenotypic analyses, validate new measuring tools, propose novel strategies and therapeutic supports. Its ultimate aim is to pave the way for new discoveries and for innovative therapeutic interventions, able to improve health and quality of life among autistic individuals, thanks to this “insider’s view”.

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Frontiers in Psychiatry

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