A Bibliometric Analysis of Collaboration and Consultation in Autism Research: Trends, Global Networks and Emerging Themes

Abstract

Research on autism has expanded significantly across educational, healthcare, and interdisciplinary contexts, with increasing attention given to collaboration and consultation practices that support autistic individuals. However, existing studies remain fragmented, and limited bibliometric evidence is available to systematically examine the intellectual structure, thematic evolution, and global collaboration patterns within this field. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the research landscape of collaboration and consultation in autism studies using a bibliometric approach. The study addressed three research questions concerning publication trends and growth patterns, influential countries and international collaboration networks, and dominant and emerging research themes based on keyword co-occurrence analysis. Data were retrieved from the Scopus database, involving 286 English-language journal articles published between 2020 and 2025. Bibliometric analyses were conducted using VOSviewer, including publication trend analysis, country-level co-authorship analysis, and keyword co-occurrence analysis. The findings revealed increasing publication trends, indicating growing scholarly interest in collaborative and consultative practices within autism research. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia emerged as the most influential countries in terms of publication productivity and collaboration strength. Dominant themes included inclusive education, interdisciplinary collaboration, social communication, and professional consultation, while emerging themes involved telehealth, neurodiversity, participatory research, and artificial intelligence. Overall, the findings reflect a growing shift toward inclusive and person-centred approaches in autism research.