Backgrounds: Autistic adults tend to prefer eating alone, which may result in further social isolation. This study aims to understand contexts of challenges autistic adults face when eating with other people outside home. Methods: We explored autistic subjectivities actively situated in eating environments. We conducted follow-up individual email interviews with autistic adults diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder in adulthood (n = 10) and autistic adults without a formal diagnosis (n = 6), both of whom had participated in our prior online survey with Brazilian autistic adults. We used a thematic analysis to gain an in-depth understanding of challenging characteristics of social situations in the eating space. Results: To eat out comfortably, many participants did not talk while eating, chose places without sensory overload, chose places with eatable foods, ate at off-peak hours, used sensory tools, and/or left places when stressed. Participants developed these coping strategies to negotiate incongruences between their autistic personal characteristics and their physical environments. However, there were incongruences between the coping strategies and social contexts with codiners. Participants often could not freely use the strategies—both in work and in casual social situations. This lack of freedom of choice often resulted in feeling uncomfortable, sick, or having meltdowns during or after social dining. Because of these experiences, many participants decided to avoid social dining. Conclusions: The preference to eat alone in autistic adults may reflect their desire for freedom of choice to use coping strategies to eat in a peaceful food space. Creating a peaceful eating environment may be a feasible and humanistic approach to reduce unwanted aloneness and social isolation in autistic adults. Lay summary Why was this study done? Eating together with other people is a common activity to socialize and feel a sense of belonging. But autistic adults often prefer to eat alone, though they have a desire to socialize. What was the purpose of this study? To study challenging aspects of eating out with other people, to understand why some autistic adults prefer to eat alone. What did the researchers do? We interviewed adults who considered themselves to be on the autism spectrum. Of the 16 interview participants, 10 were formally diagnosed with an autism condition and 6 were not. They once participated in our online survey with Brazilian autistic adults. The interviews were done by email. We asked about eating places and experiences in eating out. We looked for the common themes over all the interview responses. What were the results of the study? When eating out alone, participants had strategies to eat comfortably. They could eat without talking, choose places without sensory overload, choose places with eatable foods, eat at off-peak hours, use tools such as earphones, or leave the place when stressed. However, they often could not freely do so in both work and casual social situations. They knew that their coping strategies would be considered inappropriate by others. For example, many participants felt pressured to talk while eating. Also, other people had different preferences for the times and places to eat from participants. It was difficult for participants to deal with the stressful environment without using their coping strategies. So, participants often felt uncomfortable, sick, or had meltdowns during or after eating out with others. For these reasons, many of them avoided eating out with others. What do these findings add to what was already known? Autistic adults' preference to eat alone and difficulty in social situations involving eating have been understood as eating problems in autism. Our findings suggest that some dining companions reduce autistic persons' freedom to eat in comfortable social and physical environments, and that the preference expresses a desire to have such freedom. What are potential weaknesses in the study? Because we used email interviews, the study did not include any participant without access to email, and participants were all college educated, unlike most Brazilian adults with an autism diagnosis. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future? The findings will help autistic adults by letting others know ways that dining companions potentially reduce autistic persons' freedom to eat comfortably and by inspiring them not to do so. The findings also suggest that society should focus on creating a peaceful eating environment instead of focusing on finding ways to treat autistic aloneness as if aloneness in autism is caused by problems inside of the autistic individual.
Autistic adults are usually capable of consenting to sex. We enjoy sex and it's our right to have safe, responsible, healthy sex lives.
ASAN partnered with the Family Network on Disabilities to produce Roadmap to Transition: A Handbook for Autistic Youth Transitioning to Adulthood
Check out these 3 actually doable executive functioning tips for autistic adults FROM an actually autistic adult! Plus there's a free printable cheatsheet!
Background: Although autistic adults often discuss experiencing “autistic burnout” and attribute serious negative outcomes to it, the concept is almost completely absent from the academic and clinical literature. Methods: We used a community-based participatory research approach to conduct a thematic analysis of 19 interviews and 19 public Internet sources to understand and characterize autistic burnout. Interview participants were autistic adults who identified as having been professionally diagnosed with an autism spectrum condition. We conducted a thematic analysis, using a hybrid inductive–deductive approach, at semantic and latent levels, through a critical paradigm. We addressed trustworthiness through multiple coders, peer debriefing, and examination of contradictions. Results: Autistic adults described the primary characteristics of autistic burnout as chronic exhaustion, loss of skills, and reduced tolerance to stimulus. They described burnout as happening because of life stressors that added to the cumulative load they experienced, and barriers to support that created an inability to obtain relief from the load. These pressures caused expectations to outweigh abilities resulting in autistic burnout. Autistic adults described negative impacts on their health, capacity for independent living, and quality of life, including suicidal behavior. They also discussed a lack of empathy from neurotypical people and described acceptance and social support, time off/reduced expectations, and doing things in an autistic way/unmasking as associated in their experiences with recovery from autistic burnout. Conclusions: Autistic burnout appears to be a phenomenon distinct from occupational burnout or clinical depression. Better understanding autistic burnout could lead to ways to recognize, relieve, or prevent it, including highlighting the potential dangers of teaching autistic people to mask or camouflage their autistic traits, and including burnout education in suicide prevention programs. These findings highlight the need to reduce discrimination and stigma related to autism and disability. Lay summary Why was this study done? Autistic burnout is talked about a lot by autistic people but has not been formally addressed by researchers. It is an important issue for the autistic community because it is described as leading to distress; loss of work, school, health, and quality of life; and even suicidal behavior. What was the purpose of this study? This study aimed to characterize autistic burnout, understand what it is like, what people think causes it, and what helps people recover from or prevent it. It is a first step in starting to understand autistic burnout well enough to address it. What did the researchers do? Our research group—the Academic Autism Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education—used a community-based participatory research approach with the autistic community in all stages of the study. We analyzed 9 interviews from our study on employment, 10 interviews about autistic burnout, and 19 public Internet sources (five in-depth). We recruited in the United States by publicizing on social media, by word of mouth, and through community connections. When analyzing interviews, we took what people said at face value and in deeper social context, and looked for strong themes across data. What were the results of the study? The primary characteristics of autistic burnout were chronic exhaustion, loss of skills, and reduced tolerance to stimulus. Participants described burnout as happening because of life stressors that added to the cumulative load they experienced, and barriers to support that created an inability to obtain relief from the load. These pressures caused expectations to outweigh abilities resulting in autistic burnout. From this we created a definition: Autistic burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic life stress and a mismatch of expectations and abilities without adequate supports. It is characterized by pervasive, long-term (typically 3+ months) exhaustion, loss of function, and reduced tolerance to stimulus. Participants described negative impacts on their lives, including health, capacity for independent living, and quality of life, including suicidal behavior. They also discussed a lack of empathy from neurotypical people. People had ideas for recovering from autistic burnout including acceptance and social support, time off/reduced expectations, and doing things in an autistic way/unmasking. How do these findings add to what was already known? We now have data that autistic burnout refers to a clear set of characteristics, and is different from workplace burnout and clinical depression. We have the start of a model for why autistic burnout might happen. We know that people have been able to recover from autistic burnout and have some insights into how. What are the potential weaknesses in the study? This was a small exploratory study with a convenience sample. Although we were able to bring in some diversity by using three data sources, future work would benefit from interviewing a wider range of participants, especially those who are not white, have higher support needs, and have either very high or very low educational attainment. More research is needed to understand how to measure, prevent, and treat autistic burnout. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future? These findings validate the experience of autistic adults. Understanding autistic burnout could lead to ways to help relieve it or prevent it. The findings may help therapists and other practitioners recognize autistic burnout, and the potential dangers of teaching autistic people to mask autistic traits. Suicide prevention programs should consider the potential role of burnout. These findings highlight the need to reduce discrimination and stigma around autism and disability.
Self-advocacy as an autistic adult is so much more than just getting accommodations at work. It affects tons of little everyday interactions.
Awareness of autism is on the rise and we're getting better at identifying non-stereotypical presentations in children. However, this leaves a lost generation of Autistic adults who have gone through their lives undiagnosed. This article unpacks what autism is, Autistic masking and two common presen
Discover tips for guiding your neurodivergent teen through the autism transition to adulthood, from education to independence.
Trying to pass as neurotypical can contribute to autistic burnout, which involves exhaustion and a loss of skills due to depleted resources.
Learn about how and when your teen should provide disclosure about their autism with employers, activities outside of school and more.
Autism awareness doesn't end in April for the families who are uncertain about the future for their autistic children as they become adults.
Healthy emotional regulation doesn't mean that you never show any feelings at all. Feeling your feelings is the best way to learn to handle them.
As a teacher, preparing students with Autism for adulthood is hard. Everyone's ‘adulthood’ looks different. Here are some tips to successfully prepare kids!
{:en}Don't judge a book by its cover. There are many good reasons why someone may not have been diagnosed with autism as a child.{:}
Autistic girls tend to be diagnosed significantly later than boys,
Autistic people may have social challenges, but we are humans and we do have feelings. We are capable of friendship, love, parenting, and more.
Communication and personal responsibility are key to keeping autistic relationships free of unhealthy behavior, whether both partners are autistic or not.
High functioning autistic children are being misdiagnosed, diagnosed too late, and having their needs left on the back burner. How can you help change this?
Strategies and support to help teens and young adults as well as their families during key stages in life such as puberty, transitioning after high school, training, community living, independent living, housing, etc.
Many girls hide their autism, sometimes evading diagnosis well into adulthood. These efforts can help women on the spectrum socially and professionally, but they can also do serious harm.
To put it simply, a shutdown is the opposite of a meltdown. Instead of the explosion that occurs with a meltdown, a shutdown involves imploding instead.
ASAN has prepared a comprehensive toolkit to empower people with disabilities, their families, and other disability advocates to help youth with disabilities manage their own health care as they transition to adulthood. As ASAN found in our 2013 report, youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities face a variety of barriers to accessing…
Realistic expectations are key to healthy relationships, NT or ND, so ditch your ideas of rom-com style couplings and go in with respect and understanding.
The importance of boundaries for autistic people can't be overstated. We need them to advocate for ourselves as well as to protect ourselves from abuse.
Well-meaning NTs often try to include me in their socialization because they don't want me to feel left out. It's truly kind, but it's so stressful for me!
Children with autism grow up to be adults with autism. They still need support and services. Here's how to support adults on the autism spectrum.
Autistic masking is an emerging research area that focuses on understanding the conscious or unconscious suppression of natural autistic responses and adoption of alternatives across a range of domains. It is suggested that masking may relate to negative outcomes for autistic people, including late/missed diagnosis, mental health issues, burnout, and suicidality. This makes it essential to understand what masking is, and why it occurs. In this conceptual analysis, we suggest that masking is an unsurprising response to the deficit narrative and accompanying stigma that has developed around autism. We outline how classical social theory (i.e., social identity theory) can help us to understand how and why people mask by situating masking in the social context in which it develops. We draw upon the literature on stigma and marginalization to examine how masking might intersect with different aspects of identity (e.g., gender). We argue that although masking might contribute toward disparities in diagnosis, it is important that we do not impose gender norms and stereotypes by associating masking with a “female autism phenotype.” Finally we provide recommendations for future research, stressing the need for increased understanding of the different ways that autism may present in different people (e.g., internalizing and externalizing) and intersectionality. We suggest that masking is examined through a sociodevelopmental lens, taking into account factors that contribute toward the initial development of the mask and that drive its maintenance.
When you're autistic, being ill means more than just having a cold. It can mean tons more sensory information just when you're too sick to deal with it.
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Mood, anxiety, personality and eating disorders more commonly affect autistic people diagnosed in adulthood than those diagnosed in childhood.
There’s a thriving autism-empowerment community that wants to change the “life with autism is tragic” perception. Read their stories.
Managing expectations can help autistic people reduce stress and avoid meltdowns. Learning to accept alternatives makes life a lot easier for us!
Getting an autism diagnosis as an adult is life-changing and a lot to take in. You are not broken. And there's a whole community waiting for you. Welcome!
Discover effective strategies for equipping autistic teens with crucial life skills and promoting independence and well-being.
Can Autism Improve in Adulthood? Autism is a lifelong condition and for most individuals, they do not improve much during their growth into adulthood.
With the availability of information about autism spectrum disorders (ASD) on the internet and other media sources, some adults may start to question whether they have ASD. The path to self-discovery may start when your child is diagnosed (this happened to my friend, Judy Endow), someone in your life may point out that you have some ASD traits, or you…
Autism is a lifelong disorder. Learn how to prepare for adulthood on the spectrum with information about college, jobs, housing, therapy, and funding.
Are you feeling overwhelmed with how to find the best resources for Autism? This is a massive list of FREE resources to help you feel less overwhelmed...
High-functioning autism is a complete misnomer. Just because my struggles aren't obvious doesn't mean they aren't there or that I don't need support.
As autistic adults, we've been told what we can't do our whole lives. But we can set our own limits and decide how much we can handle for ourselves.
