What Factors Have Been the Most Helpful and Harmful and When? Identifying Key Impacts on Psychosocial Development According to Autistic Adults and Caregivers.
Juliette E Lerner, Hillary Schiltz, Noa Schisterman and 2 others
PMID 40146316WHAT IT FOUND
Autistic adults and caregivers said relationships mattered most.
Speech therapy, daily living supports, jobs, hobbies and education were helpful at different ages, but the study reports experiences, not proof that they work.
Key findings
01Caregivers and more cognitively able autistic adults reported people as the most frequently endorsed helpful category.
02Speech therapy was named among services reported helpful, and more speech therapy was named among things that did not happen but would have helped.
03Less cognitively able caregivers endorsed services as helpful in adulthood more often than more cognitively able caregivers, while more cognitively able caregivers endorsed education as helpful in adulthood more often than less cognitively able caregivers.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The adults and caregivers were asked to recall factors from early childhood, school age, adolescence and adulthood, so early memories may be inaccurate. Analyses became small when split by reporter and by specific code, so some differences may be unstable. The sample was mostly White and male, and the participants were diagnosed in the 1990s, so it may not represent autistic adults today or other backgrounds. The study subsample was more likely to be White and to have maternal caregivers with at least a four-year college degree than the full cohort. Caregivers reported for many less cognitively able adults who could not provide interview responses, so those views may not match what those adults would say. The study reports what participants said was helpful or harmful, not whether any service caused better outcomes.
Declared interests
The supplied text names the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute of Mental Health as funders. It does not report a commercial sponsor or other conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that speech therapy, day programs, education or community activities improve psychosocial development. The study asked what participants said was helpful or harmful, and it did not test whether any service caused better outcomes.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →