Abstract
Emotions are embedded in culture and play a pivotal role in making friends and interacting with peers. To support the social participation of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) it is essential to understand their emotional life in the context of ethnic and school cultures. We are particularly interested in how anxiety and loneliness are experienced in developing and maintaining friendships in the daily encounters of adolescents with ASD in the specific context of Japanese schools, because these emotions could serve either as facilitators or barriers to social interaction, depending on how individuals manage them. The present qualitative study investigated perceptions of emotions related to friendship in the everyday school life of 11 adolescents with ASD in Japan. Data were collected by means of semi-structured individual interviews, which revealed a wide range of motivations for socialization, limited future prospects to deepen friendships, robust self-awareness of one’s own social challenges, and conscious efforts to cope with these challenges. An inductive approach to data analysis resulted in four themes: social motivation, loneliness, anxiety, and distress. To our knowledge this is the first study to uncover the rich emotional life of adolescents with ASD in the context of their friendships in an Asian culture.
Highlights
Friendship is important for everyone throughout life
Two of the 11 participants (18%) were diagnosed with Autistic disorder (AD), seven with Asperger’s disorder (AS) (63%), and two with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) (18%)
The Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) score and demographic data of each participant are summarized in Table 1; we have provided supplemental tables giving additional cognitive evidence consisting of the definitions of friendship (S1 Table) and loneliness (S2 Table) by each participant and those of same-age neurotypical adolescents whose data were collected in this study as an additional information source
Summary
Friendship is important for everyone throughout life. Adolescence marks a primary period of forming intimate friendships in typically developing youth [1,2]. Young people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), whose defining feature is social impairments (DSM-5) [3], seem to follow different developmental trajectories because of their social communication challenges [See 4 for review]. Children and adolescents with ASD are known to have fewer friends than age-matched peers [4,5]. How do young people with ASD feel about friends and friendships? Do they feel loneliness when alone or even when they are surrounded by other people? Do they want to have more friends, or would they How do young people with ASD feel about friends and friendships? Do they feel loneliness when alone or even when they are surrounded by other people? Do they want to have more friends, or would they
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