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Autism Research: Lessons from the Past and Prospects for the Future

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The paper uses both the author’s experience of research training, and the empirical studies of autism in which he participated over the last 40-plus years, to derive research lessons and to consider the needs and prospects for future research. Attention is drawn to: the importance of mentors; the need to use technologies in a hypothesis-testing fashion; the important of possible creative/innovative leaps and of recognition of the unexpected; the need to ask challenging questions and to recognize when the original ideas were mistaken. There is great value in broadening the scientific strategies used to investigate a particular condition and much is to be gained by deliberately seeking parallels with other conditions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. SGDP Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Box P080, De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AF, UK

    Michael Rutter

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  1. Michael Rutter
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Correspondence to Michael Rutter.

Additional information

Lifetime career award address given at the meeting of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), Orlando, 23 November 2002.

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Rutter, M. Autism Research: Lessons from the Past and Prospects for the Future. J Autism Dev Disord 35, 241–257 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-004-2003-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-004-2003-9

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