About

John D. Herrington, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. He directs the Emotion and Neurodiversity Laboratory and co-directs the Developmental Neuroimaging Program at the Center for Autism Research at CHOP. His research focuses on social and emotional information processes in both neurotypical and neurodiverse populations, with a particular emphasis on the co-occurrence of anxiety disorders in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Dr. Herrington's work examines anxiety in ASD across multiple levels of analysis, from neurobiological systems to clinical practice. He has active NIH grants aimed at identifying depression and anxiety symptoms using computer vision and computational linguistics. His clinical expertise includes the treatment of anxiety in neurodiverse and neurotypical populations.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Neuroscience
• Clinical psychology
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• Affective Computing in Youth Psychopathology: Protocol for the Adolescent Communication of Emotions Study

  Personalized Medicine in Psychiatry · 2026-02-18

  article
  PublisherDOI

• A Transdiagnostic AI-Based Measure of Interpersonal Coordination in Autism and Other Conditions

  2026-03-07

  articleOpen access

  Background: Interpersonal coordination is a fundamental social behavior that has been shown to be reduced in autism, though less is known about other psychiatric conditions. An automated quantitative measure of interpersonal coordination would enhance assessment, diagnosis, and monitoring of treatment-related change in autism and other psychiatric conditions. We introduce and apply a novel AI-based measure (’concurrence’) to quantify and compare nonverbal interpersonal coordination during naturalistic conversation in individuals with and without various psychiatric presentations. Methods: The primary analysis included 380 12–18-year-olds with neurotypical development (NT), autism (AUT), or other psychiatric conditions (PSY), recorded during videoconference get-to-know-you conversations with a research staff member (‘partner’). Replication analyses included 72 12–18-year-olds with NT or AUT, recorded during face-to-face conversations. A self-supervised AI method (concurrence) was applied to time series data representing facial expressions and head movements of participants and their conversation partners. This yielded interpersonal coordination scores for all participant-partner dyads, which were then compared transdiagnostically. Convergent and discriminant validity were assessed using annotated subsamples from a combined sample of 609 5–52-year-olds. Convergent validity was assessed with measures of social gaze, motor imitation ability, and conversation quality; discriminant validity was assessed with IQ scores. Results: In the videoconference sample, AUT demonstrated significantly lower interpersonal coordination than PSY (unadjusted Cohen’s d=0.46, p<0.001) and NT (d=1.03, p<0.001), with PSY also lower than NT (d=0.50, p<0.001). The AUT<NT effect was replicated in the face-to-face sample (d=0.73, p<0.05). The group-by-context interaction was nonsignificant (p=0.33), suggesting group differences are robust to recording context. Convergent and discriminant validity was demonstrated through positive associations between interpersonal coordination and mutual social gaze (r(108)=0.46, p<0.0001), gross motor imitation ability (r(35)=0.41, p<0.05), and conversation quality ratings (r(364)=0.34, p<0.0001), but not IQ (r(367)=0.03, p=0.55).Limitations: Generalizability is limited by sample characteristics including cognitive and verbal ability, age, and sex.Conclusions: The study demonstrates reduced interpersonal coordination in adolescents with autism and other psychiatric conditions (AUT<PSY<NT) using a novel, transdiagnostic computational measure. This finding replicated across different conversational contexts and the concurrence measure demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity, highlighting its potential as an automated and scalable individual-level measure of social skills.

  PublisherDOI

• Training to understand and navigate emotions and interactions (TUNE In): A novel program to support social functioning in adults on the autism spectrum

  Research in Autism · 2026-01-12

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Stop Right Now, Thank You Very Much: Psychopathic Traits, Externalizing Dimensions, and Interpersonal Proximity

  Journal of Personality Disorders · 2026-04-01

  article

  s = 175 and 173) used clinical-forensic and transdiagnostic measures relevant to psychopathy and an adapted interpersonal distance task. Participants indicated preferred proximity to different targets ranging in affiliation and threat after describing each target in their own words. As expected, participants preferred closer proximity to affiliative targets (e.g., a friend) versus threatening ones (e.g., a thief). However, psychopathic traits did not predict interpersonal proximity preferences. Notably, psychopathic traits (Factor 2; antagonism) were linked to response inconsistency, suggesting task disengagement. Exploratory findings showed that participants high in antagonism used more negative language to describe strangers, suggesting hostile attribution bias; however, this was unrelated to task behavior. Overall, the task did not reveal clear socioemotional differences linked to psychopathy. More engaging, ecologically valid methods are needed to better assess affiliation and threat processing in psychopathy.

  PublisherDOI

• The Under-Identification of Autism in Females: A Review and Analysis of Sex-Based Scoring Differences Observed in Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) Module 3

  Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · 2026-02-24

  articleOpen access

  Emerging research highlights sex differences in autism presentation, raising questions about the validity of clinician-administered diagnostic tools like the gold-standard Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). This study examines whether clinicians’ perceptions, potentially biased toward male-typical presentations, contribute to sex bias in ADOS items and the under-identification of autism in females. In a sample of 813 children, multidimensional item response theory graded response models were employed to analyze differential item functioning (DIF) of items in ADOS Module 3 (the version commonly administered to school-aged children with fluent spoken language). Six items showed significant sex bias. On four social communication items, females tended to be underscored, meaning rated as showing fewer autistic features (e.g., more emotion talk) than males with equivalent levels of autism latent traits. In contrast, females tended to be overscored on two items related to restricted or repetitive behaviors and interests (i.e., more finger mannerisms, specific interests, or repetitive behaviors). The impact of sex bias on overall scores was small, ranging from 0.10 to 0.28 points per item, and approximately 0.41 points on the overall test score. This analysis joins three previous reports of specific ADOS items that function differently in females than males, with converging evidence identifying two problematic items (D2 and D4). Overall, DIF was small and unlikely to affect ADOS classification. We speculate that the direction and consistency of DIF in social communication items might reflect underlying phenomena (viz., masking, clinician bias) that may relate to female underdiagnosis more generally.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The under-identification of autism in females: A review and analysis of sex-based scoring differences observed in Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) Module 3

  2026-01-06

  articleOpen access

  Purpose: Emerging research highlights sex differences in autism presentation, which raises questions about the validity of clinician-administered diagnostic tools like the gold-standard Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) for females. This study examines whether clinicians’ perceptions, potentially biased toward male-typical presentations, contribute to sex bias in ADOS item and the under-identification of autism in females.Methods: In a sample of 813 children, multidimensional item response theory graded response models were employed to analyze differential item functioning (DIF) of items in ADOS Module 3 (the version commonly administered to school-aged children with fluent spoken language).Results: Six items showed significant sex bias. On four social communication items, females tended to be underscored, meaning rated as showing fewer autistic features (e.g., more emotion talk) than males with equivalent levels of autism latent traits. In contrast, females tended to be overscored on two items related to restricted or repetitive behaviors and interests (i.e., more finger mannerisms, specific interests, or repetitive behaviors). The impact of sex bias on overall scores was small, ranging from 0.10 to 0.28 points on an item, and approximately 0.41 points on the overall test score.Conclusion: This analysis joins three previous reports of specific ADOS items that function differently in females than males, with converging evidence identifying two problematic items (D2 and D4). Overall, DIF was small and unlikely to affect ADOS classification; however, we speculate that the underlying phenomena (viz., masking and clinician bias) may obscure certain social communication symptoms and partially explain the underdiagnosis of autism in females. Abbreviations: Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS); differential item functioning (DIF)

  PublisherDOI

• NF1-specific growth charts for head circumference over the first three years of life

  medRxiv · 2025-06-23

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract Background and objectives Macrocephaly is among the most common findings in neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and may be associated with other clinical manifestations of the genetic syndrome. NF1-specific growth charts that account for expected macrocephaly may increase sensitivity to detect atypical growth. We aimed to produce NF1-specific growth charts of head circumference for the age range of 0 to 3 years and to assess their potential clinical impact. Methods Using electronic health records from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, we collected head circumference measurements from children with NF1 and a community control cohort seen at scheduled well-child visits. We compared head circumference normed using Center for Disease Control (CDC) growth charts between these groups over time. We constructed NF1-specific growth charts using two independent methods. Finally, we used mixed-effects models to relate the resulting centile scores with developmental delay assessed with the Survey of Well-being of Young Children. Results Our dataset contained 2180 observations from 305 individuals (167 male) with NF1, and 104,750 observations from 16,742 individuals (8809 male) in the community control cohort, all aged 0 to 3 years old. Head circumference was significantly elevated in NF1 throughout the age range ( P adjusted <0.05), but the effect sizes varied nonlinearly with age, starting moderate at 1 month ( d = 0.56), then small at four months ( d = 0.28), moderate again at 15 months ( d = 0.58), and finally large at 28 months ( d = 0.8). NF1-specific growth curves demonstrated slower rate-of-growth for head circumference in the first two months of life yet more sustained growth over time. Although none of the children with NF1 met the standard for microcephaly according to CDC charts, smaller head circumference benchmarked against NF1-specific charts was correlated with developmental delay (standardized beta = 0.24; P = 0.013). Discussion We present the first NF1-specific growth charts for head circumference covering ages 0 to 3 years. Macrocephaly in NF1 becomes more exaggerated over time as rate-of-growth is sustained compared to controls. Smaller head size relative to NF1 growth expectations is not captured by CDC charts yet nevertheless relates to developmental delay, suggesting that NF1-specific charts may increase sensitivity to clinically concerning patterns of growth in children with NF1.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Rethinking Ethics for an Era of Trusted Computational Tools

  Psychiatric Clinics of North America · 2025-10-15

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Measuring Dependencies between Biological Signals with Self-supervision, and its Limitations

  ArXiv.org · 2025-07-29

  preprintOpen access

  Measuring the statistical dependence between observed signals is a primary tool for scientific discovery. However, biological systems often exhibit complex non-linear interactions that currently cannot be captured without a priori knowledge regarding the nature of dependence. We introduce a self-supervised approach, concurrence, which is inspired by the observation that if two signals are dependent, then one should be able to distinguish between temporally aligned vs. misaligned segments extracted from them. Experiments with fMRI, physiological and behavioral signals show that, to our knowledge, concurrence is the first approach that can expose relationships across such a wide spectrum of signals and extract scientifically relevant differences without ad-hoc parameter tuning or reliance on a priori information, providing a potent tool for scientific discoveries across fields. However, dependencies caused by extraneous factors remain an open problem, thus researchers should validate that exposed relationships truly pertain to the question(s) of interest.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cross-Cultural Consortium on Irritability (C3I): An International Network for Research on Cultural Similarities and Differences in Irritability

  JAACAP Open · 2025-09-09 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Irritability is among the top reasons for youth mental health referrals worldwide. Cultural factors may affect how irritability manifests and develops; how it is experienced by youth and responded to by their caregivers; and how it is treated. However, the influences of cultural context on irritability have received little systematic investigation. The Cross-Cultural Consortium on Irritability (C3I; https://m.yale.edu/c3i ) is an international research network created to increase the limited evidence base on cross-cultural similarities and differences in irritability. By bringing together researchers worldwide, C3I provides an innovative and collaborative approach to address unmet needs and to explore novel research questions regarding cultural variation in irritability. In addition, combining resources and data around the globe helps to produce robust, reproducible, and generalizable results using large mega-data. One important initiative involves pooling existing datasets to support manuscript collaborations. The first 3 such projects focus on cross-cultural comparisons of the following irritability-related topics: boundaries of normative behavior; association with suicidality and self-harm; and informant effects. Another ongoing effort involves conceptualization of irritability across cultures. Other efforts include promoting projects of primary data collection using qualitative and quantitative methods, harmonization across measures, and facilitating/supporting community-based participatory research and engagement. C3I is an innovative, collaborative research structure to build a robust, reproducible, and generalizable evidence base on irritability and its characteristics, including sociocultural influences. This evidence base will facilitate recognition and assessment of irritability and, ultimately, inform development of effective, culturally informed prevention and intervention to benefit the largest possible number of youth and their families. This article describes the Cross-Cultural Consortium on Irritability (C3I), an international network aimed at understanding how culture shapes the presentation, experience, response to, and treatment of irritability in youth. By exploring these cultural influences, C3I seeks to improve recognition, assessment, and development of effective, culturally sensitive prevention and intervention strategies to benefit the largest possible number of youth and their families worldwide.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Robert T. Schultz

  University of Pennsylvania

  156 shared

• Birkan Tunç

  47 shared

• Benjamin E. Yerys

  Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

  47 shared

• Judith S. Miller

  45 shared

• Gregory A. Miller

  Neurobehavioral Systems

  37 shared

• Juhi Pandey

  Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

  37 shared

• Wendy Heller

  37 shared

• Anna S. Engels

  Pennsylvania State University

  31 shared