The Research Gap—Why this study is needed
Here’s what we know about autism and trauma as of 2026…
- There’s a meaningful correlation between autism and PTSD¹.
- There’s also a meaningful correlation between autism and cPTSD².
And we’ve identified numerous pathways that likely contribute to those correlations, including…
- Autistic people are more likely to be victims of family member and caregiver abuse³.
- Autistic people are more likely to be victims of domestic violence⁴ and physical abuse⁵.
- Autistic people are more likely to experience sexual abuse and sexual assault⁶.
- Autistic people are more likely to be victims of bullying at school and in the workplace⁷.
- Autistic people are more likely to report adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) ⁸.
- Autistic people are more likely to experience neglect⁹ in early childhood.
- Autistic people are more likely to experience coercive interventions, restraint, and forced compliance¹⁰.
We also know from loads of research in the field of psychology that these experiences contribute to accumulated trauma over time¹¹.
Side note: Accumulated and compounded trauma over time is included in the ICD 11 (WHO) under a diagnosable condition of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD) while the DSM has not yet added cPTSD as a diagnosable condition.
So, there’s a logical chain between the autistic experiences I outlined above and accumulated trauma over time that’s supported by research and how cPTSD is defined.
But there’s something significant missing from the current scientific landscape when it comes to the relationship between autism and cPTSD.
A missing element that has yet to be fully investigated…
And that element has to do with the way we respond to our environments when there is a mismatch (which creates an unmet need)… and we are not provided sufficient support.
Which suggests an entirely different potential pathway for autistic people to acquire long term trauma that compounds over time.
One that has not yet been fully investigated.
So…
Autistic brain wiring
↓
Mismatch with environment
↓
Unmet need / insufficient support
↓
Trauma acquisition?
↓
Long term accumulated trauma (cPTSD)?
Some parts of the pathway have been investigated, but the evidence currently exists in pieces across the research.
Particularly in two areas.
1. Research that identified a type of anxiety that autistic people experience that can’t be explained by any other type of diagnosable anxiety¹².
In the research, this was called “autism distinct anxiety.”
Here are some examples of what that research surfaced.
Autistic people are more likely to experience anxiety related to…
- Sensory overstimulation
- Disruptions in routine
- Not having access to their “special interests.”
- Misunderstandings and being misunderstood
- Social rejection
This study adds a piece to the puzzle by identifying a form of anxiety that shows up when autistic people experience these types of environmental mismatches.
So, the pathway now looks more like this…
Mismatch
↓
Unmet need
↓
Distinct anxiety ✓… (Trauma acquisition?)
↓
cPTSD?
And the other area where research exists that points to this potential pathway of trauma accumulation in autistic people is…
2. Research that looked at how autistic brains might react and respond to “mild stressors.”
In a study conducted on mouse models with brains that mimic autistic brains, they found that “mild stress” resulted in PTSD-like responses in the mice¹³.
So, if we bring this research into this pathway, but map it to what’s happening in the mouse model brains, it looks something like this…
Mismatch
↓
Unmet need
↓
Trauma acquisition ✓
↓
cPTSD?
The problem is that this study was conducted on mice, so we can’t say for certain that the same results would be found if we were able to replicate the study on humans (which we can’t for ethical reasons).
Which leads me to a gap I’m seeing in the research…
We don’t currently have research looking at what happens when an autistic *human* experiences a mismatch with their environment to determine if the internal experience would meet the psychological definition of trauma.
In other words…
From the existing research (mainly the distinct anxiety research) we can reasonably infer that when there is a mismatch between the autistic brain/body and environment, this creates unmet needs…
And when those needs are insufficiently supported, that results in autism-specific anxiety in a meaningful percentage of autistic people.
But what we don’t know (from research) is if that anxiety creates trauma.
We don’t have scientific evidence (yet) that this anxiety creates trauma in the way the field of psychology defines it.
That’s the missing piece of the puzzle.
That’s what we need to understand before we can determine, scientifically, if this is another pathway for an autistic person to acquire long-term compounded trauma (cPTSD).
And that brings us full circle back to the research study I have been talking about conducting (now, with a team of industry and domain subject matter experts).
This study will attempt to investigate what happens when an autistic person experiences a mismatch between their brain/body and environment.
Particularly, looking at how the autistic person responds to the mismatch.
Investigating if they respond to the mismatch as a threat…
And storing that experience for future protection…
And if repeated exposure changes how they respond the next time the same mismatch shows up.
In other words, we need to investigate whether or not the autistic person experiences the mismatch as a threat, stores that experience for future protection, and becomes triggered with a threat response (fight/flight/freeze) when they encounter the mismatch again.
Because if we find evidence of this in our research, it would suggest that for autistic people, trauma formation may actually begin with experiences that the average person sees as extremely “small.”
Things they assume we should be able to just… shake off and move on from.
Things like a “bad haircut”…. a coffee order that’s not quite right, the sound of a piccolo in the distance, and about a million other things that the world looks at us sideways for when we’re in full blown meltdown mode and all they see is a minor annoyance.
Because once we understand that piece, then we can track what happens to the autistic person as the underlying autism-specific mismatches continue to show up without external supports and interventions.
And this is where the survey design becomes instrumental in this investigation. And this is why having a team of research subject matter experts will become especially powerful for this study.
We still have quite a way to go before we get to the point of designing the survey, especially now that we have slowed down our process to expand our research team…
But it is monumentally important to us that this study produces results that offer a meaningful contribution to autism research and our community. So we will continue to be intentional and rigorous in our approach, even if it means a longer timeline to completion.
With that said, if you’re interested in following along as we make progress, I will have a centralized hub of everything related the project up shortly.
In the meantime, you can sign up to stay in the loop on my website (I’ll share a link to the sign up page below).
P.s. I will be creating a page on my website with all the referenced articles in this post since it’s heavily oriented around existing research. In the meantime, I’ll share a text version of the resource page below.
More to come soon 🙏🏻