It is a privilege and honor to assume the role as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders (JADD) from Dr. Fred Volkmar, who has served in this role for almost 15 years. In addition to his tireless efforts on behalf of the journal, Dr. Volkmar has assembled an impressive group of highly accomplished, productive, and hardworking associate editors. As a JADD reviewer for many decades, and more recently a senior, associate, and co-editor, I look forward to working with this distinguished group of scholars. In addition to being a researcher in the field of autism for many decades, I am also the aunt of an autistic child. Although he used no spoken verbal words when diagnosed at two-and-a-half, he is now thriving socially, academically and athletically as a teen. This personal experience has been both enlightening and educational.

Since coming on board, we have developed guidelines for sensitive and respectful language which appear in the submission guidelines. I would like to thank Cara Puglliese, Zach Williams, Lizzie Ponder, Giacomo Vivanti, Robert Koegel, and Alice Carter for their feedback and edits on various drafts. Remaining non-judgemental and inclusive is important to our editorial staff and we are making efforts to have authors revise manuscripts that may inadvertently include language that lacks sensitivity. 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.

Due to the large number of submissions, we are attempting to streamline the review process by adding a group of topic editors who will evaluate submissions based on topic, design, novelty, and contribution to decide whether they are suitable to go to peer review. We hope this process will save time for authors and reviewers. JADD’s topic editors are Roald Oien, University or Tromso (Norway) and Yale University (Screening/Assessment), Edward Cook, University of Illinois Chicago (medical), Cara Pugliese, Children’s National Hospital, Maryland (Intervention/Family/Caregiving), Mark Brosnan, University of Bath (Adolescent/Adult/Gender/ Transition/Employment) – Steve Camarata, Vanderbilt University (Statistics and Design), and Kathy Thiemann-Bourque, University of Kansas (Speech and Language). I would like to confirm that as a co-developer of Pivotal Response Treatment, a motivational intervention we first published on in JADD in 1987, all submitted manuscripts related to this topic will be handled by and have all editorial decisions made by one of our senior Topic Editors.

Also, we now require a structured abstract which increases the 120-word abstract to 250 words. The structured abstract includes the purpose, methods, results, and conclusion and allows readers to get a more thorough understanding of the article.

Finally, we no longer have the case history category. Given that autism is no longer a rare condition, we felt that this category is no longer necessary. We continue to invite articles with group designs as long as they include an appropriate control group, single subject designs, systematic and meta-analyses.

Again, I am humbled to be assuming this new role as Editor in Chief and look forward to working with Dr. Volkmar who will continue as a consulting editor, the editorial board, authors, and community at large, to continue JADD’s reputation as the leading peer-reviewed journal in the field of autism and related developmental differences. My sincere appreciation to Jennifer Hadley and her team at Springer, as well as the editorial board members and reviewers who work so tirelessly to review the multidisciplinary theoretical and applied submissions to understand the condition and support autistic individuals, their families, and the broader community.