4 Adham Beykikhoshk, Ognjen Arandjelovi´c, Dinh Phung, Svetha Venkatesh, and Terry Caelli ical, and family studies have been conducted [5]. This is illustrated by the plot in Fig. 1 which shows the number of academic papers in English with the word “autism” in the ti- tle or abstract (as indexed by the PubMed portal which interfaces the US National Library of Medicine life and biomedical sciences database). The earliest work is that by Kanner in 1946 [6] with a readily observed exponential increase thenceforth. Note that the count for the year 2014, which seemingly bucks the trend, is in fact perfectly in agreement with the overall increase as only papers indexed by PubMed up to and including May 2014 are included. Fig. 1: The number of academic papers in English with the word “autism” in the title or abstract as indexed by the PubMed portal which interfaces the US National Library of Medicine life and biomedical sciences database. The earliest work is that by Kanner in 1946 [6]; thereafter an exponential increase is readily observed. Note that the count for 2014 is incomplete as it includes papers indexed by PubMed only up to and including May 2014. Although the last few decades have seen significant progress in the study of ASD, the still relatively poorly understood aetiology of the condition, its phenotypical heterogene- ity [7], and stigma associated with mental conditions [8], have all contributed to the pen- etration of beliefs, and behavioural and educational interventions which are often ques- 1 9 7 3 1 9 7 1 9 8 1 1 9 8 5 1 9 8 9 1 9 3 1 9 7 2 0 1 2 0 5 2 0 9 2 0 1 3 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 number of publications