‘Just trying to talk to people … It’s the hardest’: Perspectives of adolescents with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder on their social communication skills

Abstract

Difficulty with social communication is the most pervasive difficulty experienced by individuals with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HF-ASD). Communication difficulties are often magnified in adolescence as social demands become more intricate. This puts adolescents with HF-ASD at increased risk of social isolation and depression, as they have difficulty developing positive social identity. Yet, there is a dearth of literature addressing the communication issues of this population and even fewer studies including the voice of adolescents with HF-ASD themselves. This study aimed to: 1) Explore the perspectives of adolescents with HF-ASD as to their social communication skills, 2) Explore what (if any) difficulties they perceive themselves as having when talking with their peers, 3) Explore if they would like help with social communication skills and 4) Determine what kind of help they think may be useful to them and establish if they already use self-initiated strategies. This study was qualitative in nature, using thematic analysis to analyse data collected from 10 semi-structured interviews with 5 adolescents with HF-ASD. Three themes emerged revealing the participants' perceptions of their difficulties communicating, challenging feelings that they experience about communication, and their perspectives about the support for developing communication skills. The 2 participants indicated a need for support to aid their desire to improve communication skills and interactions with typically developing peers. In educational settings, adolescents with HF-ASD may benefit from a peer mentor system to give them opportunities to practice social communication skills with typically developing peers and to encourage inclusion amongst their classmates.

Incidental Teaching of Conversational Skills for Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Consequently, children with ASD may struggle with pragmatic language skills, which allow an individual to speak intelligibly, behave appropriately, and understand the perspective of others (Lam & Yeung, 2012). Although individuals with ASD may display a willingness to communicate, their difficulty with pragmatic language skills can isolate them from peers (Kelly et al, 2018). In general, their verbal communication may lack cohesive devices, turn taking, topic maintenance, lack of initiation or appropriate responding, resistance to topic changes by others, and weaknesses in perspective taking.…”

“…These interventions allow students to generalize their learned skills across context and settings (Lane et al, 2020). Teaching in the natural environment where cues continually change yields better " Although individuals with ASD may display a willingness to communicate, their difficulty with pragmatic language skills can isolate them from peers (Kelly et al, 2018).…”

Vocabulary and Main Idea Reading Intervention Using Text Choice to Improve Content Knowledge and Reading Comprehension of Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Adding to the complexity of addressing the intervention needs of students with ASD is the heterogeneity of performance in reading and language (McIntyre et al, 2017). Many students with ASD also have difficulties with pragmatic language and verbal ability, which can affect their social skills (Kelly, O'Malley, & Antonijevic, 2018).…”

Privacy Attitudes and Behaviours of Autistic and Non-Autistic Teenagers on Social Networking Sites

“…Several researchers attest to the potential of SNS to enhance these users' social and psychological well-being [20,70,89,98]. Autistic teenagers have the same desire to build strong relationships and to belong as their typically developing peers [49]. However, members of this population are especially susceptible to loneliness and social isolation because of their difficulties with social communication and social anxiety [31,49,65].…”

“…Autistic teenagers have the same desire to build strong relationships and to belong as their typically developing peers [49]. However, members of this population are especially susceptible to loneliness and social isolation because of their difficulties with social communication and social anxiety [31,49,65]. The anonymity and reduced social cues of SNS offer these users a relatively comfortable communication environment, where they can exert more control over their self-presentation and better mitigate over-stimulation during social interactions than in the real world [12,20,89].…”