Sedgewick Felicity, Crane Laura, Hill Vivian, Pellicano Elizabeth
Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE), UCL Institute of Education, London, United Kingdom.
Autism Adulthood. 2019 Jun 1;1(2):112-123. doi: 10.1089/aut.2018.0028. Epub 2019 Apr 13.
Little is known about the friendships and relationships of autistic adults, despite decades of research evidence showing the benefits of close relationships for neurotypical adults. Even less is known about the relationships of autistic women, or how their relationships compare with those of neurotypical women. This mixed-methods study, therefore, examined differences in the social relationships of autistic women in relation to their neurotypical counterparts.
Thirty-eight women (19 autistic women, 19 neurotypical women), aged between 20 and 40 years, completed the Unidimensional Relationship Closeness Scale, The Awareness of Social Inference Test, and a semistructured interview about their current and former friendships and romantic relationships.
In many ways, the social relationships and experiences of autistic women were much like those of neurotypical women. Autistic women, however, had greater difficulty with social inference skills, and reported experiencing more negative social situations. This was particularly the case in terms of social and sexual vulnerability, a feature that the autistic women themselves linked to their difficulties with social inference. Despite these challenges, autistic women were happier and more self-assured in their adult relationships than they remembered being in adolescence.
These findings highlight an urgent need for specific and tailored personal safety training and support for autistic women-and, by extension, autistic girls-to ensure that they can enjoy a safe transition to adulthood and positive adult relationships.
At the moment, we know lots about adult friendships and relationships among neurotypical people, but we know very little about friendships and relationships for autistic adults. This is especially the case for autistic women, who are an understudied group and who are not often studied in their own right. We wanted to find out whether autistic women have similar friendship and romantic relationship experiences to neurotypical women. We also wanted to know more about the ways these relationships had changed since adolescence-whether any changes over time were similar or different to those of neurotypical women. We included 38 women in the study. Half of them were autistic and half were neurotypical. They were aged between 20 and 40 years old. They completed a questionnaire measuring the closeness of their relationships, and a test of how well they understood social situations. They also took part in an interview where we asked them about their current and past friendships and romantic relationships, and if/how these had changed over time. We found that autistic and neurotypical women had friendships and relationships that were very similar. Both groups had friends, and similar number of women in each group had partners and children. Autistic women, though, found it harder to interpret social situations, and generally reported having more difficult friendship/relationship experiences than neurotypical women. This was especially true in terms of social and sexual experiences, where autistic women reported that they were much more vulnerable to exploitation than neurotypical women. Autistic women themselves linked this to their difficulties interpreting social situations. Despite these difficulties though, autistic women were happier with their relationships and much more confident in their social skills in adulthood than they remembered being as teenagers. These findings give us new information about the social experiences of autistic women, giving them the opportunity to talk about things that have gone well alongside some of the difficulties they can face. The positive outcomes women talked about were different to those reported in autistic men (in previous research). This is important because it shows that gender shapes social experiences as much as being autistic itself. We had to ask women to look back on their teenage years, so there is always a chance that people have misremembered things or are interpreting them differently in adulthood to how they felt at the time. Also, as only those comfortable being included as women were involved in this study, it was not possible to carry out direct comparisons between the friendships and relationships of women and men, or those of autistic nonbinary or trans people, who likely have unique experiences. We hope that the findings of this research will help families and professionals to better support autistic girls and women in their relationships, particularly in terms of romantic and sexual relationships, as well as education on personal safety. It also goes some way toward dismissing popular myths about autistic people struggling to make real friendships by showing a variety of successful relationships among autistic women.
尽管数十年的研究证据表明亲密关系对神经典型成年人有益，但对于自闭症成年女性的友谊和人际关系却知之甚少。对于自闭症女性的人际关系，或者她们的人际关系与神经典型女性的人际关系相比如何，了解得更少。因此，这项混合方法研究考察了自闭症女性与神经典型女性在社会关系方面的差异。
38名年龄在20至40岁之间的女性（19名自闭症女性，19名神经典型女性）完成了单维关系亲密度量表、社会推理意识测试，以及关于她们当前和以前的友谊及恋爱关系的半结构化访谈。
在很多方面，自闭症女性的社会关系和经历与神经典型女性非常相似。然而，自闭症女性在社会推理技能方面有更大的困难，并报告经历了更多负面的社交情况。在社会和性方面的脆弱性方面尤其如此，自闭症女性自身将这一特征与她们在社会推理方面的困难联系起来。尽管有这些挑战，但与她们回忆起的青春期相比，自闭症女性在成年关系中更快乐、更自信。
这些发现凸显了迫切需要为自闭症女性——以及由此延伸到自闭症女孩——提供特定且量身定制的人身安全培训和支持，以确保她们能够顺利过渡到成年并拥有积极的成年关系。
目前，我们对神经典型人群中的成年友谊和人际关系了解很多，但对自闭症成年女性的友谊和人际关系却知之甚少。自闭症女性尤其如此，她们是一个研究不足的群体，而且自身也不常被单独研究。我们想弄清楚自闭症女性的友谊和恋爱关系经历是否与神经典型女性相似。我们还想更多地了解这些关系自青春期以来的变化方式——随着时间推移的任何变化与神经典型女性的变化是相似还是不同。我们的研究纳入了38名女性。其中一半是自闭症患者，一半是神经典型人群。她们年龄在20至40岁之间。她们完成了一份测量人际关系亲密度的问卷，以及一项关于她们理解社交情境能力的测试。她们还参加了一次访谈，我们询问了她们当前和过去的友谊及恋爱关系，以及这些关系是否/如何随时间变化。我们发现自闭症女性和神经典型女性的友谊和人际关系非常相似。两组都有朋友，且每组中拥有伴侣和孩子的女性数量相近。然而，自闭症女性发现更难解读社交情境，并且总体上报告说她们的友谊/关系经历比神经典型女性更困难。在社会和性经历方面尤其如此，自闭症女性报告说她们比神经典型女性更容易受到剥削。自闭症女性自身将此与她们解读社交情境的困难联系起来。尽管有这些困难，但与她们青少年时期相比，自闭症女性对自己的关系更满意，并且在成年后对自己的社交技能更有信心。这些发现为我们提供了关于自闭症女性社会经历的新信息，让她们有机会谈论进展顺利的事情以及她们可能面临的一些困难。女性谈到的积极结果与之前研究中自闭症男性报告的不同。这很重要，因为它表明性别与自闭症本身一样，对社会经历有塑造作用。我们要求女性回顾她们的青少年时期，所以总是有可能人们记错了事情，或者在成年后对事情的解读与当时的感受不同。此外，由于只有那些愿意被纳入研究的女性参与其中，所以无法直接比较女性和男性的友谊及人际关系，也无法比较自闭症非二元性别或跨性别者的友谊及人际关系，他们可能有独特的经历。我们希望这项研究的结果将有助于家庭和专业人士更好地支持自闭症女孩和女性的人际关系，特别是在浪漫和性关系方面，以及人身安全教育方面。它还在一定程度上消除了关于自闭症患者难以建立真正友谊的流行误解，展示了自闭症女性中各种成功的人际关系。
