This year has again been shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic, with dramatic morbidity and mortality across the world, vaccination issues, and new variants. In many places, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), conflict zones, or where health systems were already stressed by previous health crises, the burden was compounded by additional vulnerability, with a heavy impact on disabled children. In addition to possibly more obvious physical consequences, the emotional and social well-being of these children has been severely affected. It was a distinct honour to publish an invited editorial by Her Majesty Queen Mathilde of Belgium, highlighting COVID-19 fatigue and mental health of disabled children and their families, and promoting mental health within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

The restrictions imposed by the pandemic have made us rethink how we conceive and deliver therapy, organize scientific meetings, and prepare for the future of academic publishing. This year, we received more submissions to Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology (DMCN) than ever before, and published more papers: all of them very good, some outstanding. Article and author podcast downloads and citations also reached new records, and our latest impact factor (IF) made another historic leap past 5 (2-year IF 5.45, 5-year IF 5.37). This says something about the quality and importance of the research, and the review and editorial process. I am very grateful to authors, reviewers, and the editorial team. Beyond the impact factor, the full impact relates to how DMCN can be transformative of the lives of people with developmental disability within their social contexts worldwide.

We are grateful to both authors and societies (ALDID, AMEXPCTND) for providing excellent translations of abstracts and manuscripts into the language of their community. During this year, we also worked more extensively with people with lived experience to enhance the relevance of what we publish, involving them in the review process for submitted papers, inviting them to write commentaries from their own perspectives, and encouraging their integration in the authorship of papers. Part of this effort has been realized through our productive collaboration with The Community Council of the AACPDM.

We have strengthened our partnership with Cochrane Rehabilitation, and have published a Cochrane Corner in every issue of DMCN. We have further improved the methodological evaluation of systematic reviews, a critically important development since close to 90% of recent systematic reviews of interventions for children with cerebral palsy (CP) have been shown to provide conclusions with an unacceptably low level of confidence.1

We also supported debate on important societal issues like those arising from the relationship between researchers and pharmaceutical companies, and diversity and inclusion, with contributions from the BPNA, EACD, and AusACPDM. State-of-the-art reviews clarified the impact of extreme weather events and air pollution on neurological development. Several papers investigated the effect of antenatal or neonatal exposure to opioids on developmental outcomes.

This year’s volume contains many high-quality studies and a few clinical practice guidelines that take our field forward: from screening (e.g. of hearing disability in collaboration with UNICEF),2 early diagnosis and intervention within the ICF framework, to adulthood (e.g. outcomes,3 core sets, a comorbidity index), and the development of Alzheimer dementia in people with CP. Studies and reviews range from cytokines, energy metabolism, and microstructure, to gene expression reinstatement, personalized medicine, and online patient engagement; from priorities in LMICs to robotics and virtual reality.

My personal highlights also include documented phenomenology of dysarthria in CP,4 evidence-based, consumer-informed consensus to optimize respiratory health disease in CP,5 and one on physical activity in this condition. I wonder what yours are, and would welcome any suggestion to further improve DMCN.