Expanding Research on Contextual Factors in Autism Research: What Took Us So Long?
Although autism is a childhood-onset neurodevelopmental disorder, its features change across the life course due to a combination of individual and contextual influences. However, the influence of contextual factors on development during childhood and beyond is less frequently studied than individual factors such as genetic variants that increase autism risk, IQ, language, and autistic features. Potentially important contexts include the family environment and socioeconomic status, social networks, school, work, services, neighborhood characteristics, environmental events, and sociocultural factors. Here, we articulate the benefit of studying contextual factors, and we offer selected examples of published longitudinal autism studies that have focused on how individuals develop within context. Expanding the autism research agenda to include the broader context in which autism emerges and changes across the life course can enhance understanding of how contexts influence the heterogeneity of autism, support strengths and resilience, or amplify disabilities. We describe challenges and opportunities for future research on contextual influences and provide a list of digital resources that can be integrated into autism data sets. It is important to conceptualize contextual influences on autism development as main exposures, not only as descriptive variables or factors needing statistical control.
Authors
- Matthew J. Hollocks (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9513-6917)
- Patricia Howlin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1804-6053)
- Leann Smith DaWalt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0376-4095)
- Julie Lounds Taylor (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3904-3476)
- Lonnie Zwaigenbaum (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9607-0799)
- Anat Zaidman‐Zait (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2336-5147)
- Marsha R. Mailick (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6548-2096)
- Meng‐Chuan Lai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9593-5508)
- Christine M. Freitag (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9676-4782)
- Alycia Halladay (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8264-8753)
- Chung‐Hsin Chiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9640-9139)
- Vanessa Hus Bal (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0750-823X)
- Maureen S. Durkin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4287-8618)
- Teresa Ann Bennett (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0047-501X)
- Adriana Di Martino (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6927-290X)
- Catherine Lord (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5633-1253)
- Gordon Forbes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8662-3636)
- Patrick Powell (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0251-5721)
- Stelios Georgiades
- Somer Bishop
- Matthew J. Maenner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4750-5607)
Institutions
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- Goethe University Frankfurt (DE)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US)
- Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CA)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- University of Alberta (CA)
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- King's College - North Carolina (US)
- University of California, San Francisco (US)
- King's College London (GB)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- University of Cambridge (GB)
- McMaster Children's Hospital (CA)
- Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital (CA)
- Child Mind Institute (US)
- Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute (US)
- National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (US)
- University Hospital Frankfurt (DE)
- University of San Francisco (US)
- National Chengchi University (TW)
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center (US)
- McMaster University (CA)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Autism Research
- Published
- 2025-02-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.3312
- Citations
- 7
- Primary Topic
- Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 10.02
Funders
- Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
- Autism Science Foundation
- Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation
- Children's Hospital Foundation
- National Institute for Health and Care Research
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute of Mental Health
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development