ArticleAutism : the international journal of research and practice2022
Cognitive processes in autism: Repetitive thinking in autistic versus non-autistic adults.
Article in Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- Naturalistic stimuli in neuroimaging studies of autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- A systematic review of ecological momentary assessment in autism research.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Pooled it
- Understanding Autistic Adults' Psychological Experiences of Anxiety Problems: A Qualitative Interview Study.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- Insistence on sameness, repetitive negative thinking and mental health in autistic and non-autistic adults.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Pathways to Psychopathology Among Autistic Adults.Current psychiatry reports · 2023Review
- Measuring the Wrong Thing the Right Way? Time to Rethink Autism Research Tools.Autism in adulthood · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
lay abstractA core feature of autism is the tendency to do the same activity or behaviour repetitively. We wanted to find out if autistic people also experience repetitive thinking, for example, having the same thoughts repeatedly. We thought that there would be a link between repetitive behaviour and repetitive thinking. We asked 54 autistic people and 66 non-autistic people to complete questionnaires measuring repetitive behaviours and obsessive thinking. Next, participants were trained by a researcher to record their thoughts using a structured paper form. They then completed 5 days of thought recording, which they did each time a random alarm sounded on their mobile phone. We found that autistic people had more repetitive thoughts than non-autistic people, but they did not report having more negative or visual thoughts compared with non-autistic people. Autistic people who had more repetitive thoughts during the 5 days of thought recording did not report more repetitive behaviour. However, autistic people who reported more obsessive thinking, for example, more negative and unwanted thoughts, also reported higher levels of repetitive behaviour. We conclude that some repetitive behaviours may be linked to anxiety and that more research is needed to better understand repetitive behaviours in autism.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.