Abstract
Bi-directional differences in social communication and behavior can contribute to poor interactions between autistic and non-autistic (NA) people, which in turn may reduce social opportunities for autistic adults and contribute to poor outcomes. Historically, interventions to improve social interaction in autism have focused on altering the behaviors of autistic people and have ignored the role of NA people. Recent efforts to improve autism understanding among NA adults via training have resulted in more favorable views toward autistic people, yet it remains unknown whether these benefits extend to real-world interactions between autistic and NA people. The current study explores whether a brief autism acceptance training (AAT) program can improve social interactions between autistic and NA adults. Thirty-nine NA males were randomly assigned to complete AAT or a no-training control condition, then participated in a 5-min unstructured conversation with an unfamiliar autistic male (n = 39). Following the conversation, participants rated their perceptions of interaction quality, first impressions of their partner, and their interest in future interactions with their partner. In dyads where the NA individual completed AAT, both the autistic and NA person endorsed greater future interest in hanging out with their partner relative to dyads in which the NA adult did not complete AAT. However, other social interaction outcomes, including ratings of interaction quality and first impressions of autistic partners, largely did not differ between training and no-training conditions, and assessments of the interaction were largely unrelated for autistic and NA partners within dyads. Results also indicated that NA participants, but not autistic participants, demonstrated substantial correspondence between evaluations of their partner and the interaction, suggesting that autistic adults may place less weight on trait judgments when assessing the quality of an interaction. These findings suggest that the brief AAT for NA adults used in this study may increase mutual social interest in real-world interactions between NA and autistic adults, but more systematic changes are likely needed to bridge divides between these individuals. Future work with larger, more diverse samples is recommended to further explore whether interventions targeting NA adults are beneficial for improving autistic experiences within NA social environments.
Highlights
Difficulties with social interactions are common for autistic adults
While interaction quality reported by autistic adults only correlated significantly with their ratings of closeness, higher ratings of interaction quality reported by NA participants correlated with greater closeness and many other factors as well, including higher ratings of their autistic partner being likable, intelligent, and warm, lower ratings of them being awkward, and increased interest in hanging out with and starting conversations with them
Previous research has demonstrated that training programs designed to increase autism acceptance and knowledge among NA people can reduce biases and improve inclusive attitudes toward autistic people (Gillespie-Lynch et al, 2015; Dickter et al, 2020a; Jones et al, 2021), no study to date has investigated whether training benefits extend to real-world interactions between autistic and NA people
Summary
Difficulties with social interactions are common for autistic adults. They report few close friendships (Howlin et al, 2000; Orsmond et al, 2004) and are more likely to experience social exclusion and low quality of life compared to adults with cognitive or other developmental disabilities (Orsmond et al, 2013; DaWalt et al, 2019). In contrast with the decades of research documenting autistic difficulties inferring the mental states, emotions, and intentions of NA individuals (Baron-Cohen et al, 1985; Schultz, 2005; Morrison et al, 2019b), a growing empirical literature grounded in the DEP framework has found that NA adults make similar social cognitive errors when trying to understand their autistic peers (Edey et al, 2016; Sheppard et al, 2016) These misperceptions can lead NA adults to view autistic people unfavorably (Alkhaldi et al, 2019), and may contribute to social exclusion and poor mental health among autistic adults (Mitchell et al, 2021)
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