Autism and Health: Across the Lifespan

The Autism and Health: Across the Lifespan Channel (Autism and Health Channel) was founded in 2023 to promote research to increase the life expectancy and quality of life of autistic individuals. With broad support from national collaborative research entities, the goal of this academic channel is to serve as a forum to disseminate scientific articles which contribute to the evidence base of health promotion for autistic individuals and their families across the lifespan. The specific content areas include but are not limited to the following:

• Primary Care Services and Quality
• Community Based Lifestyle Interventions
• Gender, Sexuality, and Reproductive Health
• Health Systems and Services
• Neurology
• Genetics

The submission types that the Autism and Health Channel is currently accepting include original articles, review articles, and case reports. Only invited editorials will be considered at this time. Submitting to our channel is free! When submitting, please select "Yes, this is a channel article" - if you do not select this as your option, you will not be posting to our channel and are subject to purchasing Cureus editing services. Be sure to select " Autism and Health: Across the Lifespan Channel " under "Academic Departments". Please note that while Cureus only requires a reviewer minimum of 2 in order to move the submission forward for publication, Autism and Health Channel strongly encourages a minimum of 4 reviews. When preparing your article, we encourage you to review the following table, created by the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health (AIR-P) self-advocate Autistic Researcher Review Board. The table includes suggested language on terms surrounding autism and ensure your article aligns with our channel’s culture. This also helps our editorial staff during their review:

Traditional terms, concepts, and ideas
Disorder
Autism spectrum disorder
Deficit
Autism symptoms
Red flags for autism
Problem behavior/challenging behavior
Restricted interests
Co-morbid
Risk*
Risk factor*
Healthy controls

Suggested alternatives
Disability
Autism, autism spectrum development, autism spectrum disability
Area of challenge, difficulty
Autism characteristics, traits, features
Signs or indicators of possible autism
Distressed behaviour, meltdown, more specific description of the behavior (e.g., self-injury, destruction of property)
Focused, intense interests
Co-occurring
Likelihood, probability
Predictive factor, predictor, correlate
Typically-developing/neurotypical (if screened for other diagnoses), non-autistic (if only autism ruled out), or general.