Publishing about autism spectrum disorder in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior: bibliometric analysis (1958–2017)
Abstract
The article analyzes publications about autism in the leading behavioristic journals – the «Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis» (JABA) and the «Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior» (JEAB). In total, 7211 publications published between 1958 and 2017 were identified in Scopus. 597 of them contains terms (in the title, the abstract and/or in the author’s key words) which were used as search topic: «autism», «autistic», «Asperger syndrome» and «pervasive developmental disorder». It was shown that the vast majority of articles concerning autism are published in «Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis» (98%). The dynamics of publications including cumulative curves is explored. Six thematic clusters in the field of studying autism are highlighted by constructing the terms map based on keyword analysis. The practice of co-citation is analyzed. The results would suggest that there is the essential schism between experimental and applied research of autism within the framework of behavior analysis.
Keywords: autism, autism spectrum disorder, behaviorism, behavior analysis, bibliometric analysis, experimental science, applied science.
* The research was supported by the Russian Foundation of Basic Research (RFBR), the scientific project No. 18-013-00715
