What a year was 2021. A lot of turmoil across the world which did impact everyone. Of course this also impacted all of you and also us as researchers/lecturers. However, we also feel we had a great year. We started with analyzing our cross-sectional findings on autism and aging to see whether we can replicate our earlier findings. For the protective effect the answer was no, for the parallel effect the answer was yes and for the lack of evidence for accelerated aging the answer was yes (see paper Torenvliet on the publication section of our website). We reviewed all kinds of subgrouping papers in the autism field (see paper Agelink-van Rentergem) to conclude that in many papers it is not clear when authors feel it will be a valid subtype. We tried to determine subtypes ourselves in the general population to test our preregistered method which we also will apply in autistic adults (for general aging subtype paper, see paper Radhoe). We also focused on menopause (questionnaire data), perceptual processing (MRI data), and much more.
We could not have done all this work without
- our research participants who were willing to fill in many questionnaires, to be interviewed (online), and to be tested with a 1.5 metres distance between them and the person who tested them. We are super grateful that you all participated! As you know we are also almost done with the data-collection for the longitudinal section and I really appreciate all the time you have put into being part of this research. At the end of the project we will organize a conference for you all and more information will follow in 2022.
- our think tank with older/autistic adults, you know who you are…it is always a great pleasure to discuss a wide range of research related topics and life in general.
- the people that were part of our lab but now have another position…Dr Annabeth Groenman who now works at educational science and who got a grant to focus more on ADHD again, Dr Joost Agelink van Rentergem, who now works at the Dutch Cancer Institute and got a grant to continue his work into the impact of cancer therapy on cognition, Riley & Marthe who were both great research assistants. We hopefully will still see each other in the future.
So we hope for a great 2022, with relevant new findings, great collaborations, and hopefully without all the pandemic turmoil. Thanks again everyone.