The 2025 Year in Review

This year was a VERY eventful year for autism. If you want to hear a highlight of the good news, the great science that was discovered and the ideas developed to help families with autism, listen to this podcast or read the summary here: https://autismsciencefoundation.org/2025-year-in-review/. In summary: more precise subtypes of autism have been discovered and validated using biological markers, explanation for sex differences, new precision medicines for those with known genetic causes of autism, and new research studying the effects of early intervention. It was a great year for science, even with all the challenges from DOGE.

The different flavors of early intervention

You may have heard terms in early intervention like “NDBI” or “Early Start Denver Model” and wondered if there was a difference in efficacy behind all these flavors of toddler interventions. On this week’s podcast, we speak to Dr. Giacomo Vivanti from @DrexelAutism, who combined data from 4 of these interventions across 700 children to see if they found similar or different effects of each protocol. This group of scientists also examined these interventions on the development of spoken language. The results reinforced: 1. the earlier the better when it comes to early intervention, 2. duration of the intervention matters, and 3. focusing on imitation may be a key to helping toddlers talk.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41264359