The top ten questions for autism research were recently published by Autistica.
The initiative to identify these questions was led by Autistica in collaboration with the James Lind Alliance and three other partners, The National Autism Society, the Autism Alliance and the Autism Research Trust. This Priority Setting Partnership brought together individuals with autism, families, charities and clinicians to identify and prioritise the unanswered questions about autism that they agree are most important, in order to direct future research. Many of the questions were about the effectiveness of different interventions.
This is a tremendously valuable exercise which will be very helpful to the National Autism Project in highlighting areas of importance for which the evidence-base for effectiveness is felt to be incomplete. Our survey of the literature evidence for cost-effectiveness will surely complement the conclusions of the Autistica initiative and add weight to arguments for increased research effort.