What's the matter here?
If you’ve been following my writings for a while, you’ll know that I have a particular problem with the term “evidence-based.” So many use this in marketing so as to access funds reserved for those practices that should be based in evidence. I’ve found that much of what is called “evidence-based” not only lacks evidence but is an outright fraud.
I ignore most of it because it doesn’t intersect with me or my practice. I may call out things from time to time, like the so-called “science of reading,” but largely I keep myself to myself.
Yesterday, I came across a post on LinkedIn that just reeked of charlatanism. I thought it presented a good use-case on how to detect academic fraud. What follows is my opinion, protected by the US First Amendment. But my opinion will be buttressed by evidence, verifiable evidence. It will also lay the groundwork for you to perform such work, should you encounter spurious characters in your social media feed.
Here we go…
The above is a graphic of the flyer posted in LinkedIn. It’s what caught my attention and began my investigation. The headline is in bold and states “ABA Therapy Harms Autistic Children.” You can find a version of it at a poorly maintained web site by clicking here.
I don’t want to argue the premise. I do want to dive into the support for the premise. Ignore the body paragraphs and dive down to the references. What do you see? There are five references, four of which are from the author of the flyer. The other, number five, links to a paywalled study.
Being a PhD, and having permanent faculty privilege at my university, I have access to that fifth study. It features a convenience sample of individuals who were surveyed via an instrument that was modified for the purpose of the study without validation. Further to the point, there is nothing in the fifth paper to indicate the diagnostic codes of the study participants or that an Institutional Review Board monitored the study, a general requirement when testing human subjects.
There is a side-bar note, however, that the study’s author (Henny Kupferstein, “an Independent Researcher”) followed the basic rules: “all procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/ or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.” OK. Let’s assume she did.
But more to the point of the convenience sample, it doesn’t seem to contain anyone like me - a Level 2 autistic - or Level 3 autistics who might not be able to complete the survey on their own. This is an important point. Including only diagnosed / self-diagnosed Level 1 autistics skews the results. Why would the “independent researcher” do this? I don’t know. But the omission is a glaring red flag to me.
Back to the references…
To my mind, it’s a red flag when a paper’s author cites themself so much. It’s one thing if it’s Einstein. It’s another if the author is unknown or independent. But we’ll give the author the benefit of the doubt. When an author cites themself so much, they’re appealing to their own authority as an expert. Thus, we must deconstruct their qualifications.
The author of the flyer is allegedly David Rowland. According to his web site, “David Rowland is the autistic neuropsychologist who has discovered the neurophysiological cause of autism and developed a litmus test whereby you can know if someone suspected of being autistic has been correctly diagnosed.”
That’s a pretty bold claim. Why has no one else heard of it or him? Let’s dive into the supports by first examining the author, then his claims.
What is a Neuropsychologist?
The author claims to be a neuropsychologist. A neuropsychologist is a psychologist who specializes in understanding the relationship between the brain and behavior. The path to professional employment for a neuropsychologist in Canada:
Bachelor's degree - Typically in psychology, biology, pre-med, or related field. Provides foundation in psychology theories and biological sciences.
Master's degree in Psychology - 2-3 years focused on clinical psychology, statistics, research methods, psychopathology, assessment.
Doctorate in Psychology (PsyD) or Philosophy (PhD) - 4-6 years of specialized study in clinical neuropsychology, neuroscience, cognition, rehabilitation. Involves practicum training.
Internship - 1 year of supervised professional experience in assessments, diagnosis, interventions with neurological patients.
Complete provincial licensing - After graduating, must register with provincial regulatory body to obtain license to practice clinical psychology. Requires exams.
Board certification - Optional certification by Canadian Psychological Association in clinical neuropsychology demonstrates specialized expertise. Requires exams, references, and reviews.
Continuing education - Required by licensing bodies to maintain competency. Includes conferences, courses, readings.
The path involves extensive study in both psychology and neuroscience, applied clinical training, completion of licensing requirements, and typically takes around 7+ years post-bachelor's degree. BUT … I’ve yet to see a practicing, professional neuropsychologist that doesn’t have the alphabet soup after their name and a CV that shouts about their accomplishments. I found none on his web site. The company page on LinkedIn lists no employees.
Further digging, I found his LinkedIn page. He’s a Canadian, thus the explanation of the certification path in Canada.
I started looking for his professional license in Ontario. His LinkedIn profile says he went to the University of Toronto (1961-1967), so it seemed like a logical place to start. Here’s the College of Psychologists of Ontario. I went there and put his name in the search. It returned no results. There are no David Rowlands licensed in Ontario. In fact, I could not find a psychologist of that name licensed in any of the provinces or territories.
I did find, however, that under the Psychologists Act of 2005, only persons registered with the Board in their respective province or territory may identify themselves to the public by title or description of services as a “Psychologist.” Thus, it’s a giant red flag that someone is out there calling themselves a neuropsychologist when the laws of their country prohibit doing so.
David Rowland is the autistic neuropsychologist who has discovered the neurophysiological cause of autism and developed a litmus test whereby you can know if someone suspected of being autistic has been correctly diagnosed. (source)
The Citations
Having set the stage by examining someone who seemingly just popped up on LinkedIn and the research radar within the last few years, but who’s education goes back to the 1960’s, it’s now on to the citations from the bottom of the flyer.
Citation 1: Rowland D. Redefining autism. Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research 2020;(2).
You can find the citation listed on Google Scholar. Here’s the direct link to the paper. Google notes the publisher as the Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research, a quite reputable publication. But the link resolves to Kosmos Publishers. Another red flag. You see, the Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research is an Elsevier imprint that was discontinued in 2021. Elsevier is über capitalist and generally doesn’t allow it’s publications to be shared outside of its paywall, even when the imprint is discontinued.
Kosmos, on the other hand, lists the Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research as it’s imprint under a valid ISSN. It’s tough to resolve these issues, so we must dive a bit deeper.
The guidelines for authors page gives us another red flag. The publisher charges authors to “process” their papers. In other words, if an author wants their research paper published with Kosmos, it will cost the author between US$620 - US$1560. There are other publishing options that cost less. But there is no option to have your paper published for free. What we likely have here in Kosmos is a Paper Mill.
Paper mills are a type of industrial fraud, which is prevalent in the publishing sector. Paper mills are profit-oriented, unofficial and potentially illegal organisations which produce and sell fabricated or manipulated manuscripts which resemble genuine legitimate research. (source)
In the case of Kosmos, there is a mix of contact information. There’s an American address and phone number (payment is listed in USD). Plus, there’s an Indian email address listed as a contact. A whois of the domain yields more mystery. But, the Indian email address leads us to another interesting red flag, Paper Mills are a huge issue in India (source).
The address listed on their web page omits a street number. I did find, however, that there is a Post Office on the listed street, in the listed town in New Jersey. Perhaps they have a mailbox there?
Back to the Journal page. Guess whose picture is prominently placed? When I click on the picture, I see a profile that matches the LinkedIn information, a list of publications, and a curious bold note at the bottom.
David also publishes the “This is Autism” information website to help parents understand and support their autistic children, at www.trueautism.info
What is this TrueAutism.info?
That page yields a new address, a PO box in New Brunswick, Canada. Remember the psychologist search. He’s not registered in NB either.
Clicking on the About page, I find another curious statement. “David Rowland is a member of the Canadian Association for Neuroscience and author of
“Differential Diagnosis of Autism: a Causal Analysis” published in the Journal of Neurology and Neurophysiology 2019, 10:3” (link)
What is the Canadian Association for Neuroscience? It’s a trade group. This is another appeal to authority. You don’t have to be a psychologist or psychiatrist to be a member.
Back to the TrueAutism.info site, you find it’s publications include the references from the original flyer. You’ll also find that he has books on Amazon. It seems that he’s converted many of his flyers into books using Amazon’s “self-publishing” service. One such book, What Your Body Is Telling You: And What You Can Do About It (link), notes:
“David Rowland is Canada's foremost expert in holistic nutrition and the creator of the NUTRI-BODY® method of nutritional assessment used by practitioners for identifying and supporting deficiencies and metabolic weaknesses. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.”
Wow! But let’s not digress too much. Here’s the link to Nutri-Body. Recognize the picture?
The References - finally
Citation 1: Rowland D. Redefining autism. Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research 2020;(2). (link)
Before diving into the article, I looked up the ISSN that is listed on the masthead. That number links back to a different Kosmos “journal,” Advances in Nutrition and Food science. Oops.
Further down, there are dates. This would have us believe that the paper was received by the publisher, peer-reviewed by “experts” from all over the globe, and published in less than a month. This simply does not happen in legitimate academic publishing. All of the citations listed in the original flyer have this “less than a month” turn around time.
The article itself is complete rubbish. I don’t say this lightly. He’s advocating for a de-listing of autism from the DSM, FFS!
Does he realize what this will do to autistic people and their families? He also says that there is only one type of autism, that you are or you aren’t. He discounts the ICD’s levels entirely.
“Autistic people who cannot communicate enjoy their inner intellectual world just as much as those of us who can. Whether they spend their time fixated on televised cartoon shows or silently exploring the universe with their iPads, they are delighting in that experience.” Are we now? I f-ing hate being trapped inside my head when my gestalt processor lacks for appropriate responses or just shuts down altogether.
“The autistic brain cannot be socialized …” Ah, FFS man. Really?
The Other Citations
Rowland D. The neurophysiological cause of autism. Journal of Neurology & Neurophysiology 2020;11(5): 001-004. (link)
Rowland D. How the autistic mind functions – an insider’s report. Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research 2020;(3). (link)
Rowland D. Autism’s true nature. Journal of Neurology, Psychiatry and Brain Research 2021;(2) (link)
The other citations on the flyer are just re-workings / edited versions of the first citation. It’s essentially the same information just slightly rearranged. Another red flag.
They do, however, all contain this absolute gem of a recommendation for assessment:
Can you imagine that. A test for autism whereby some stranger asks you five questions and your VERBAL responses determine if you’re autistic or not. What rubbish?!
The Point?
The point is simple, though this was a long piece. People like this have impact. They steer conversations and money away from where it needs to be. They need to be called out when encountered. I was extra long, showing my steps, so if you encounter something like this, you’ll know how to conduct your own research to search for the truth of the matter.
Thanks for your time and patience.