1 The University of Western Australia, Australia.
2 University College London, UK.
Autism. 2019 Oct;23(7):1765-1781. doi: 10.1177/1362361319830029. Epub 2019 Feb 28.
Long-term outcomes studies often paint a discouraging picture of the lives lived by autistic adults. Yet, their outcomes are often measured against normative markers of traditional adult roles, which may not apply to autistic people making the transition to adulthood. Here, we investigated the transition experiences of a group of young autistic people who were followed from childhood. Twenty-six young people and their parents ( = 28) participated in semistructured interviews on the process of transition and their aspirations for the future. Parents often voiced serious concerns about the ongoing support their children would require and the severe lack of services designed to support them as adults. Yet, overall, young people reported feeling more in control of their own lives, including developing a sense of identity and personal autonomy, both of which may be rooted in young autistic people's executive skills and their ability to develop and maintain trusting relationships with others - two potential candidate areas for targeted support. These results call into question whether the traditional standards to which we often hold young autistic people are developmentally appropriate and suggest that the pressures of striving towards more normative ways of engaging in the world may be detrimental to their well-being.
长期的研究结果往往描绘出自闭症患者成年生活令人沮丧的画面。然而，这些结果往往是用传统的成人角色的标准来衡量的，而这些标准可能并不适用于正在向成年过渡的自闭症患者。在这里，我们研究了一组从儿童时期就开始被跟踪的年轻自闭症患者的过渡经历。26 名年轻人及其父母（共 28 人）参加了关于过渡过程和对未来的期望的半结构化访谈。父母们经常对他们的孩子将持续需要的支持以及缺乏专为成年后支持他们而设计的服务表示严重关切。然而，总的来说，年轻人报告说对自己的生活有了更多的掌控感，包括形成了身份认同和个人自主权，这些可能都根植于年轻自闭症患者的执行技能和他们与他人建立和维持信任关系的能力——这两个领域可能是有针对性支持的潜在候选领域。这些结果质疑了我们通常对年轻自闭症患者的期望是否符合他们的发展阶段，并表明朝着更正常的参与世界的方式努力所带来的压力可能对他们的幸福感有害。
