This past year has been one of transition at the Journal. To begin, Lynn Kern Koegel, Clinical Professor at Stanford School of Medicine, is the new co-editor of the Journal. Lynn has been a JADD reviewer for many decades, and more recently an associate and senior editor. Over the coming years she looks forward to continuing to work with the distinguished group of scholars who serve as associate editors and board members. In addition to being a researcher in the field of autism for many decades, she is also the aunt of a child who was diagnosed with autism at age two-and-a-half. Although he used no spoken verbal words when diagnosed, he is now thriving as a teen. This personal experience has been both enlightening and educational for her. She looks forward to working with Fred Volkmar as he transitions out of his role as Editor over the next 2 years. As an editor for nearly 15 years Fred has seen the many changes in the field and the development of the truly inspirational research enterprise for which this Journal has been such a vital part.

Sadly, as was true last year any discussion of 2021 must acknowledge the impact of the COVID virus on all of us. The pandemic has had an important impact both on our clinical work as well as research. As joint editors we’ve had to cope with many reviewers who were unable to review papers and are particularly grateful to those colleagues’ who could, in the face of covid, still participate. We have also lost colleagues, friends, and family members. The passing of Professor Sir Michael Rutter, a giant in the field, has been a singular sad event this past year.

Authors have been able, in the face of covid, to continue working and over 1400 papers were received last year. Of these slightly more than one third were eventually accepted, typically after at least one revision. It remains rare (perhaps 1% of papers) for a paper to be accepted without some revision. On average the turnaround time once a paper is in proper form and can enter the formal review process is a remarkably speedy 18 days. It is important to keep in mind that this is an average and some papers can take much longer to review and that sometimes papers go back to authors one or more times for author revision before they enter the review process. The fast turnaround time is thanks to the efforts of the staff of the Journal office, Lori Klein, and Monica Mleczek, who quickly examine all papers for conformance to basic Journal style and return them for revision before they are assigned to the Editors for review. Both of us are increasingly aware of the pressure of limited Journal space so that most review articles are now routinely referred to our companion journal; Review Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (RJADD). We also sometimes reject and return articles quickly if we feel that won’t make it through the peer review process. We are, of course, always mindful that the latter is not always perfect, but it is what we have to ensure quality. Apart from editorials and book reviews, all papers in the Journal go through a rigorous double-anonymous review process. We also remind authors, again, that the very, very fast pace of publication (sometimes only a few days once an article has been accepted) means that any errors within text will be published as well and we regret the rise in errata publications that reflect the rapidity of this process and the importance for authors to be certain that papers submitted are in final form. In the future we will try to even more rigorously screen papers so that all the required elements are there before the paper goes out for review. We also encourage authors to use the option of online publication of supplementary material as “Extra Supplementary Material” (ESM); this saves valuable Journal space while providing authors with the opportunity to give readers important ancillary material.

We remind authors that duplicate publication is not allowed, and authors certify this to us as part of the submission process along with ethical research conduct and so forth. Springer Nature is a member of COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics, and the COPE guidelines are followed for all research integrity issues that come up in relation to JADD articles both under review and published.

We continue to see submissions of scholarly papers from around the world. This past year we received papers from 68 countries. We appreciate the increased interest and scholarship in developing countries as well as those with more established research and clinical enterprises. We are pleased to note that our impact factor rose to 4.3 last year, which is excellent, especially given that JADD is a specialty journal.

We encourage special issues of topics of interest to our readership. This past year we had a special celebrating the 40th anniversary of autism’s first official recognition in the DSM-III, as well as special section on Early Detection in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The Journal continues to expand its editorial board and add Associate Editors as members rotate on and off. We bid farewell to several Associate editors who provided very valuable service to the Journal over the years: Christopher J. McDougle, M.D., James C. McPartland, Ph.D., and Gerrit Ian Van Schalkwyk, M.D.

The Journal is deeply grateful for the continued dedication of the remaining Associate Editors: Alice S. Carter, Ph.D., Craig A. Erickson, M.D., Carla Mazefsky, Ph.D., Patricia A. Prelock, Ph.D., Brian Reichow, Ph.D., Shafali Spurling Jeste, M.D., Hanna Stevens, M.D., Ph.D., Giacomo Vivanti, Ph.D., and Marc Woodbury-Smith, PhD, MRC Psych. We welcome the following new associate editors: Mark J. Brosnan, Ph.D., Steve Camarata, Ph.D., Lawrence Fung, M.D., Ph.D., and Matthew D. Lerner, Ph.D.

The associate editors, office staff and we also extend our very best wishes and many thanks to Jennifer Hadley as Senior Editor and Soren Malpass, Editorial Assistant at Springer.

In the Journal office we wish to thank Lori Klein, Editorial Manager, Monica Mleczek and Lizzie Ponder, Editorial Assistants, who not only work tirelessly with authors and reviewers to assist with the submission process, but they also work diligently to ensure that every submission conforms to JADD standards before it enters peer review, thereby streamlining the process for the Editor and Associate Editors.

In the upcoming year we will be working on many projects, including developing suggestions for inclusive language as well as providing guidelines for the types of high-quality research that are likely to be favorably reviewed for publication in JADD. Both terminology and standards change over time, and the JADD editors and editorial board who have been working to improve the quality of life for individuals on the autism spectrum, wish to be both inclusive and sensitive. We feel that this, in turn, promotes a more just and inclusive humankind.

Listed in the following section are the names of the individuals who have contributed one or more reviews to the Journal this year. We apologize if we have missed anyone! Again, although far from perfect, peer review remains the most effective way for the field to ensure the quality of the scholarly product. JADD thanks these individuals for their hard work and dedication.

Fred R. Volkmar, M.D. and Lynn Kern Koegel, Ph.D.

Co-editors

Sarah Abdallah

Sana Abu-Dahab

Dawn Adams

Lynn Adams

John Agnew

Seppo Ahlfors

Si-Nae Ahn

Kenneth Aitken

Yusuf Akemoğlu

Jessica Akers

Janeth Aleman-Tovar

Eglal Ali

Issa Alkinj

Richard Allen

Mohammed Allouh

Bander Alotaibi

Mohammad Altamimi

Haitham Amal

Stephanie Ameis

Joon-Yong An

David Anaki

Karyn Kai Anderson

Ligia Antezana

Kevin Antshel

Saeed Anwar

Yuta Aoki

Manijheh Arabi

Mary Jo Archambaul

L. Eugene Arnold

Maria Claudia Arvigo

Susan G. Assouline

Melinda Jones Ault

Frank Avenilla

J.B. Axe

Amaria Baghdadli

Christopher Baglio

Vanessa Bal

Giulia Balboni

Brian Barger

Erinn Nell Barry

Erin Barton

Elke Baten

Raman Baweja

Kimberly Bean

Myriam Beauchamp

Renae Beaumont

Alessio Bellato

Dorit ben Shalom

Kari Berquist

David Beversdorf

Lucy Bilaver

Federico Bionda

Elizabeth Kay-Raining Bird

Vicki Bitsika

Jan Blacher

Melissa Black

Abigail Blackman

Pamela Block

Jessica Blume

Jonna Bobzien

Irina Boksha

Evan Bordt

Kristen Bottema-Beutel

Brian Boyd

Kathryn Bradbury

Casey Bradford

Jessica Bradshaw

James Brasic

Alexis Brewe

Jessica A. Brian

Samuel Brice

Noah Britton

Briana Bronstein

Charlotte Brownlow

Magdalena Budisteanu

Lauren Bullard

Jenny Burton

Amy Camodeca

Ricardo Canal-Bedia

Jamie Capal

Simone Josephine Capp

Teresa Cardon

Sarah Carlon

Christina Carnahan

Amarie Carnett

Laura Carpenter

Thierry Chaminade

Jeffrey Chan

Tara Chandrasekhar

Shawn R. Charlton

Yu-Lun Chen

Yun-Ju Chen

Gail Chodron

Roula Choueiri

Tessa Clarkson

David Cochran

Aimee Code

Emily Coderre

Ketti Johnson Coffelt

Ira Cohen

Marija Čolić

Laura María Compañ-Gabucio

Caitlin Conner

Paul Constable

Barbara Cook

Edwin Cook

Blythe Corbett

Daniel Coury

Alison Cox

Emma Craig

Hayley Crawford

Pamela Crooke

Meixia Dai

Amy Daniels

Nicole Dargue

Talena Day

Andres De Los Reyes

Berenice de la Cruz

Taynara de Lima

Pieter De Nijs

Richard de Visser

Petrus J de Vries

Michelle Dean

Anders Dechsling

Naoko Deguchi

Stephen I. Deutsch

Briano Di Rezze

Thiago Dias

Gabriel Dichter

Cheryl Dickter

Joshua Diehl

Sylvia Diehl

Peter Doehring

Hirokazu Doi

Smadar Dolev

Michail Doumas

Barbara Dritschel

Michaela DuBay

Amie Duncan

David Dunn

Shaun M. Eack

Rita Eagle

Karen Eastman

Stephen Edelson

Jamie Edgin

Ayşegül Efe

Inge-Marie Eigsti

Abbey Eisenhower

Leif Ekblad

Farah El Zein

Rebecca Elias

Kimberly Ellison

Yael Enav

Karen Engel

Joshua Ewen

Graeme Fairchild

Susan Faja

Nicholas Fears

Deborah Fein

Kristina Cottle Feldman

Sarah Fenn

Rachel Fenning

Jenny Ferguson

Fernanda Fernandes

Elisabeth Fernell

Elizabeth Biggs

James Findon

Julia Fisher

Marisa Fisher

Leigh Fisler

Michael Fitzgerald

Richard Fleming

Jill Fodstad

Eric Fombonne

Aiden Ford

Thomas Frazier

Christine Freitag

Jonathan Friedel

Laura Friedman

Elspeth Froude

Richard Frye

Hiroshi Fujino

Junya Fujino

Takao Fukui

Avia Fux-Noy

Yuanyuan Gao

Emily Gardiner

Pankaj Garg

Monique Germone

Mohammad Ghaziuddin

Kristen Gillespie-Lynch

Nadja Ging-Jehli

Paul Glaser

Sanjay Gokhale

Tina Goldsmith

Marientina Gotsis

Doriane Gras

Renee Green

Jessica Greenlee

Sarah Greenwell

Elena Grigorenko

Amanda Gulsrud

Serena Gumusoglu

Guan Guo

Yangrong Guo

Ava Gurba

Jennifer Hall-Lande

Chen Han

Jolynn Haney

Sarah Hansen

Antonio Hardan

Ashley Harrison

Laura Hart

Kathryn Hauschild

Nikita Hayden

Huizhong He

Adam Rafael Helles

Gerardo Herrera

Joe Hettinger

Emily Hickey

Hilda Ho

Ryan Ho

Matthew Hollocks

Jessica Hooker

Shari Hopkins

Yamini Howe

Dan Howitt

Shunbo Hu

Xiaoyi Hu

Rebekah Hudock

Laura Hull

Rachel Hundley

Tiffany Hutchins

Karim Ibrahim

Kajsa Igelström

Brooke Ingersoll

Georgi Iskrov

Salomon Israel

Michelle Ivey

Rachel Jellett

Alexander Jensen

Jeremy Jewell

Xinrui Jiang

Robert M. Joseph

Aaron Kaat

Louise Kaczmarek

Rachel Kallus

Carla Kalvin

Kelly Kamimura-Nishimura

Sagayaraj Kanagaraj

Erin Kang

Veronica Kang

Stephen Kanne

Connie Kasari

Terry Katz

Nilay Kayhan

veena KD

Brandon Keehn

Elliot Keenan

Elizabeth Kelley

Jennifer Keluskar

Betsy Kemeny

Lauren Kenworthy

Connor Morrow Kerns

Rouhallah Khara

SunKyoung Kim

Yael Kimhi

Melissa King

Anne Kirby

Janina Kitzerow

Bonita (Bonnie) Klein-Tasman

Ami Klin

Chia-Tzu Ko

Robert L. Koegel

Kathy Koenig

Amanda Kotolski

Evangelia Koukouriki

Jennifer Kremkow

Ankita Krishnan

Kim Kroeger

Sunil Kumar

Henny Kupferstein

Grace M. Kuravackel

Andreas Kuss

Metehan Kutlu

Vasileios Ladas

Ann Lagges

Russ Lang

Marc Lanovaz

Kenneth Larsen

Elizabeth Laugeson

Thomas L Layton

Justin Leaf

Eli Lebowitz

Luc Lecavalier

Brian Lee

James Lee

Kwangwon Lee

Jiedi Lei

Gerry Leisman

Jenna Lequia

Alan Seth Lewis

Jun Li

Xiaoyan Li

Ching-Yi Liao

Francisco Villegas Lirola

Guodong Liu

Hua Liu

Rachel Loftin

Nirali Lohiya

D. Loparo

Mauricio López-Espejo

Nicole Luke

Jordan Lukins

Emily Lund

Kristen Lyall

Debra Lynn Cote

Suzanne Macari

Brenna Maddox

Joseph Maes

Iliana Magiati

Maria Marinopoulou

Marlina Mulik

Claudia Martinez

Raquel Martinez

Johnny Matson

Kenta Matsumura

Chris May

Micah Mazurek

Luigi Mazzone

Tomomi McAuliffe

Christina McDonnell

Jennifer McFarland-Whisman

Margaret McGonigle-Chalmers

Susan McHugh

Camilla McMahon

Serena Micheletti

Susanna Mierau

Anna Milgramm

John Miller

Elliot Millington

Pat Mirenda

Bahram Mohajer

Jessica Monahan

Carlos Eduardo Monteiro

Cecilia Montiel-Nava

Heather Moore

Lindee Morgan

Michael Morrier

Hannah Morton

Matthew Mosconi

Margaret Mosher

Reem Muharib

Deirdre Muldoon

Aisling Mulligan

Ellen Kathrine Munkhaugen

Magandhree Naidoo

Charles Nelson

Emily Neuhaus

Christos Nikopoulos

Firoozeh Nilchian

Anders Nordahl-Hansen

Ebrahim Norouzi

Heather Nuske

Heather Nuske

Karen O'Connor

Sam Odom

Emily Olfson

Chris Oliver

Selda Ozdemir

Kristen Padilla-Mainor

Eleanor Palser

Michelle Palumbo

Fei-fan Pang

Melissa Pangelinan

Despina Papoudi

Heath Pardoe

Deborah Pearson

Tatiana Pereira

Linda Petersson-Bloom

Yosheen Pillay

Daniele Piscitelli

Michael D. Powers

Debra Prykanowski

Jen Quigley

Linda Quirmbach

Petya Radoeva

Rebecca Ramnauth

James Rankin

Jessica Rast

Brian Reichow

Erin Reilly

Debra Reisinger

Amanda Richdale

Kristina Rios

Mélina Rivard

Neil Roach

Diana Robins

Carol Rockhill

Isabel Rodriguez-Ortiz

Donald Rojas

Pamela Rollins

Shannon Rose

Nicole Rosen

Justin P. Rowberry

Ronit Saban-Bezalel

Lori-Ann Sacrey

Amy Sadek

Gema P. Sáez-Suanes

Cheryl Sandford

Sandra Sandoria

Kyle Satterstrom

Celine Saulnier

Carol Schall

Gretchen Scheibel

Hillary Schiltz

Lauren Schmitt

Laura Schreibman

AJ Schwichtenberg

Małgorzata Sekułowicz

Carlos Alberto Serrano-Juarez

Josephine Shenouda

Fredrick Shic

Andy Shih

Amelle Shillington

Carolyn Shivers

Kathy Kar-Man Shum

Kathy Shum

Matthew Siegel

David Simmons

Eileen Simon

Cecilia Simón

Rebecca Smees

Alastair Smith

Isaac Smith

Cheong Sng

Neelkamal Soares

Stamatis Sourvinos

Mikle South

Cristiane Souza

Debbie Spain

Nicole Sparapani

Jennifer Lawson Stapel-Wax

Jessica Dykstra Steinbrenner

Hanna Stevens

Eric Storch

Alicia Strain

Diondra Straiton

Frank Straub

Peter Sturmey

Raymond Sturner

Denis Sukhodolsky

Renee Sullivan

Pål Surén

Deana Swain

Christine Syriopoulou

Meagan Talbott

Hiroki Tanaka

Alan Teo

Robyn Thom

Rajat Thomas

Audrey Thurm

Michał Tomczak

Erin Tone

German Torres

Jason Travers

Vanessa Troiani

Sandra Tsang

Giulio Valagussa

Mary Van Bourgondien

Rutger van der Gaag

Samuel van Rensburg

Gerrit Ian Van Schalkwyk

Ernst VanBergeijk

Ravi Prasad Varma

Roma Vasa

Paola Venuti

Ty Vernon

Sarah Vitale

Nina Fischer von Edelau

Carlien Vorster

Jane Waite

Carla Wall

Greg Wallace

Chunliang Wang

Jun Wang

Kemin Wang

Xin Wang

Yan Wang

Zachary Warren

Varun Warrier

Laci Watkins

Natalie J. Webb

Alexander Westphal

Susan White

Andrew Whitehouse

Preston Wiles

Elizabeth Will

Meredith Will

A Willems

Julie Wolf

Jeff Wood

Tian Wu

Yankai Xia

Kenichi Yamada

Shuxia Yao

Benjamin Yerys

Michael K. Yeung

Eva Yin-han Chung

Marissa Yingling

Paul Yoder

Farahiyah Wan Yunus

Sarah Afiqah Mohd Zabidi

Xudong Zhao

Huajun Zheng

Zhengxin Zhu

Nicole Zurcher