In October 2025, the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) selected “Early-Onset Trajectories of Emotional Dysregulation in Autistic Children”, a publication involving MacART members Terry Bennett, Eric Duku, Stelios Georgiades, and Peter Szatmari, to be featured as part of their Journal Club.
The Journal Club program was designed to promote conversation and engagement with the expanding literature in child and adolescent psychiatry. Each quarter, one article with an associated Continuing Medical Education (CME) activity is selected for the Journal Club, and a downloadable activity is shared that includes a facilitation guide and annotated article. These materials help participants guide each other through the article and prompts conversation and are designed to encourage and support readers in hosting their own journal clubs. In addition, because the activities are developed with a CME article, facilitators and participants can pursue CME credit following their journal club discussion.
This featured publication sampled 396 children and primary caregivers participating in the pan-Canadian “Pathways in ASD Study”, which is a longitudinal inception cohort study of children who were diagnosed with autism between the ages of 2 and 4 years. The authors add to the existing literature on trajectories of emotional dysregulation (ED) in preschool Autistic children (as there was only 1 longitudinal study of older Autistic children previously), and attempt to identify modifiable family factors associated with persistent ED.
Dr. Terry Bennett, the lead author on this publication, shared a comment, “We feel so honoured and excited to see our study featured in a journal club because it increases the chances of meaningful clinical impact. Early intervention means addressing not only making an autism diagnosis but also assessing and addressing Autistic children’s emotional self-regulation AND their family well-being. These have long-term implications for Autistic kids’ mental health and functioning for years to come. We can’t assume things will “settle down” after an autism diagnosis is made, because they don’t – mental health and family well-being need careful attention and active support, as early as possible”.
The publication can be found here: https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(24)01981-6/fulltext
The Journal Club activities, including the ones associated with this paper, can be found here: https://www.jaacap.org/cmehome