How can we make therapy better for autistic adults? Autistic adults’ ratings of helpfulness of adaptations to therapy

Added on 24/01/2025

Type de contenu

Journal article of the type Scientific research ( ; english)

Jessica Paynter , Kristyn Sommer * , Amanda Cook
How can we make therapy better for autistic adults? Autistic adults’ ratings of helpfulness of adaptations to therapy published in the journal "Autism" Preprint, 14 pages , doi: 10.1177/13623613251313569

*One co-author has publicly identified as autistic. [Learn more about this mention]

- 3% of authors cited in the bibliography of this resource have publicly identified as autistic (4 out of 129 authors).
- 10% of references cited in this resource contain at least one author who has publicly identified as autistic (4 out of 40 references).

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Summary/Presentation

Autistic people are at elevated risk of mental health conditions and experience significant barriers to effective support. While adaptations to therapy for autistic people have been proposed by clinicians, there is limited research on how helpful autistic people themselves rate these. We aimed to address this gap. Participants were 130 autistic adults aged 18 to 64 years (85.4% female) who completed an online survey of the helpfulness of 55 therapy adaptations. Overall, we found positive ratings of helpfulness for approximately half of the adaptations. However, significant variability was found at an individual level with most adaptations rated from not helpful through to extremely helpful. Neurodiversity-affirming adaptations were rated highest overall. Participants shared additional adaptations including general good practice, financial, modality, neurodiversity-affirming practices, practical, sensory/environmental, structure, and therapy style/techniques. Findings highlight similarities and differences between clinician and autistic people’s perspectives, underscoring the need to include autistic people. Limitations of the restricted sample and generalizability are acknowledged. Future research including more diverse samples would be of value to expand on this research. The need to understand general preferences of autistic people and to individualize to the specific client is underscored by findings to begin bridging the mental health support gap for autistic people.

For your information:

(1) References in blue are resources listed on our site.

(2) Authors listed in this bibliography whose names are in color have published other resources referenced on the site. Clicking on the name allows you to see the list of resources they have published and shared on the site.

(3) Authors whose names are followed by an asterisk have publicly disclosed being autistic.

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