Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
New York University Langone Health, New York, NY, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2023 Oct;53(10):3770-3786. doi: 10.1007/s10803-022-05659-z. Epub 2022 Aug 3.
Autistic adults have similar levels of desire for sexual and romantic relationships as their non-autistic peers. However, autistic adults are less likely to be in relationships and have less dating experience. We compared sexual knowledge, experiences, and pragmatic language ability in a community sample of young adults with (n = 27, mean age = 22.11) and without autism (n = 122, mean age = 19.47). Receipt of sex education and sexual knowledge did not differ between groups. However, autistic adults had significantly fewer partnered experiences and impaired pragmatic language. Within both groups, pragmatic skill predicted accurate sexual knowledge above and beyond general communication abilities. Findings suggest that sex education for autistic adults must address the social communication component of healthy romantic and sexual relationships.
自闭症成年人对性和浪漫关系的渴望程度与非自闭症成年人相似。然而，自闭症成年人更不可能建立关系，也更少约会经验。我们比较了社区样本中年轻成年人的性知识、经验和实用语言能力，其中包括自闭症患者（n=27，平均年龄 22.11）和非自闭症患者（n=122，平均年龄 19.47）。两组之间的性教育和性知识接受程度没有差异。然而，自闭症成年人的伴侣经验明显较少，实用语言能力受损。在这两个群体中，实用技能预测准确的性知识，而不仅仅是一般的沟通能力。研究结果表明，针对自闭症成年人的性教育必须解决健康的浪漫和性关系中的社交沟通部分。
