Autism research is a rapidly developing field, spanning a wide range of enquiry, from classification, to genetics, to cognition and development. In parallel, evidence-based guidelines have attempted to keep up, and have revealed the nature and extent of the evidence gaps that need to be filled if we are ever going to satisfactorily address the needs of patients and families who are impaired by this prototypical neurodevelopmental condition. It is timely, therefore, that Roth and Rezaie have brought together accounts by eminent international academics to describe the range and achievements of current autism research. How successful have they been?
The first thing to note is that this book is very thorough in its range of coverage of different research themes. I learnt much that was new to me. For example, the chapter on magnetoencephalography (MEG) as a tool to investigate the neurophysiology of autism provides a mass of informative detail explaining this complex technology and its clinical applications, such as the important area of epileptiform activity. Equally, new detail was provided for psychological as well as for physical enquiry, in the description of research findings into the role of memory in autism. In this regard, the editors have successfully addressed their aim of redressing ‘uneven and patchy coverage’ of research areas that have a history of ‘conceptual and methodological difficulties’.
I also found the book useful in its consolidation of more well-known areas of enquiry, such as its overview of the genetics of autism and its explanation of ‘hot’ areas of current research into such issues as serotonin, reelin and oxytocin function.
On finishing this comprehensive overview, I wondered whether it might have been possible for the editors, in a final chapter, to have predicted what current autism research might lead to, in terms of clinical practice, over the next generation. Will there be ways of attenuating autism, by early intervention, through biochemical and/or psychoeducational means? With the pace of development over the preceding generation, admirably covered by these researchers, this is a truly fascinating thought.
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