Differences in social communication and interaction styles between autistic and typically developing have been studied in isolation and not in the context of real-world social interaction. The current study addresses this “blind spot” by examining whether real-world social interaction quality for autistic adults differs when interacting with typically developing relative to autistic partners. Participants (67 autism spectrum disorder, 58 typically developing) were assigned to one of three dyadic partnerships (autism–autism: n = 22; typically developing–typically developing: n = 23; autism–typically developing: n = 25; 55 complete dyads, 15 partial dyads) in which they completed a 5-min unstructured conversation with an unfamiliar person and then assessed the quality of the interaction and their impressions of their partner. Although autistic adults were rated as more awkward, less attractive, and less socially warm than typically developing adults by both typically developing and autistic partners, only typically developing adults expressed greater interest in future interactions with typically developing relative to autistic partners. In contrast, autistic participants trended toward an interaction preference for other autistic adults and reported disclosing more about themselves to autistic compared to typically developing partners. These results suggest that social affiliation may increase for autistic adults when partnered with other autistic people, and support reframing social interaction difficulties in autism as a relational rather than an individual impairment.

Although reduced social attention and increased nonsocial attention have been reported in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the studies have relied on predominantly male samples and have been underpowered to examine sex differences. These processes may differ for females with ASD, who have been shown to be dissimilar to males in social motivation and nonsocial features, including circumscribed interests (CI). The goal of this study was to compare social and nonsocial visual attention between males and females with ASD on a validated eye-tracking paradigm. Eighty-five school-aged (6-10 years) males and females with and without ASD completed a paired preference task of face and object stimuli (half of which related to common CI). After covarying for chronological and mental age, the presence of concurrently presented CI images reduced prioritization and attention to faces for males more than females, replicating previous findings. ASD females maintained comparable attention patterns to typically developing females, suggesting that previous findings of reduced social attention and increased attention to CI-related objects in autism may be specific to males. These findings are also inconsistent with the "extreme male brain" theory of autism. The more normative orienting and attention to social stimuli for females with ASD may indicate distinct phenotypic characteristics relative to males and possibly serve as a protective effect.Lay Summary: As autism is more commonly diagnosed in males, less is known about females with autism. Two areas of interest include the interests held by individuals with autism and how socially motivated they are. We used eye tracking as a way to understand these two areas. Our data reveal that elementary school-aged females (6-10 years) with autism attended to faces comparatively to females without autism, suggesting that (1) they were more socially motivated than males with autism and (2) the images of common interests were less motivating to them.

Non-autistic adults often hold explicit and implicit biases toward autism that contribute to personal and professional challenges for autistic people. Although previous research indicates that non-autistic adults with higher autism knowledge and familiarity express more inclusionary attitudes, it remains unclear whether training programs designed to promote autism acceptance and understanding affect subsequent implicit and explicit biases toward autism. In this study, non-autistic adults ( N = 238) completed an autism acceptance training featuring factual information and engaging first-person narratives, a general mental health training not mentioning autism, or a no-training control, then responded to surveys assessing their autism knowledge, stigma, and impressions of autistic adults, and completed a novel implicit association task about autism. Non-autistic adults in the autism acceptance training condition reported more positive impressions of autistic adults, demonstrated fewer misconceptions and lower stigma about autism, endorsed higher expectations of autistic abilities, and expressed greater social interest in hypothetical and real autistic people. However, training had no effect on implicit biases, with non-autistic adults associating autism-related labels with unpleasant personal attributes regardless of training condition. These findings suggest that the autism acceptance training program in this study, designed to increase autism knowledge and familiarity among non-autistic people, holds promise for reducing explicit but not implicit biases toward autism. Lay abstract Autistic adults face prejudice from non-autistic people. They are often judged unfairly and left out of social activities because of their differences. This can make it difficult for autistic people to make friends and find jobs. Some training programs have tried to teach autistic people to act more like non-autistic people to help them gain acceptance. Fewer have focused on teaching non-autistic people how to be more autism friendly. In this study, we used a short training video that teaches people about autism. The video was created with the help of autistic adults and included clips of real autistic people. We found that non-autistic people who watched this video had better knowledge about autism and showed more autism-friendly attitudes than those who watched a video about mental health or those who did not watch any video. They were more open to having a relationship with an autistic person and had more positive beliefs about autism. However, our video did not affect people’s unconscious attitudes about autism. People in our study connected autism with unpleasant traits, even if they had watched the autism training video. This suggests that teaching non-autistic people about autism may promote more autism-friendly attitudes, but some beliefs may be harder to change.

Background: The male bias in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses is well documented. As a result, less is known about the female ASD phenotype. Recent research suggests that conclusions drawn from predominantly male samples may not accurately capture female behavior. In this study, we explore potential sex differences in attention to social stimuli, which is generally reported to be diminished in ASD. Population-based sex differences in attention to faces have been reported, such that typically developing (TD) females attend more to social stimuli (including faces) from infancy through adulthood than TD males. It is yet unknown whether population-based sex differences in the face domain are preserved in ASD. Methods: A dynamic, naturalistic infrared eye-tracking paradigm measured attention to social stimuli (faces) in 74 school-aged males and females with ASD (male N = 23; female N = 19) and without ASD (male N = 16; female N = 16). Two kinds of video stimuli were presented that varied in social content: rich social scenes (dyadic play between two children) and lean social scenes (parallel play by two children). Results: Results revealed a significant 3-way interaction between sex, diagnosis, and condition after controlling for chronological and mental age. ASD females attended more to faces than ASD males in the socially lean condition. This effect was not found in the typically developing (TD) group. ASD males attended less to faces regardless of social context; however, ASD females only attended significantly less to faces compared to TD females in the socially rich condition. TD males and ASD females did not differ in their attention to faces in either condition. Conclusions: This study has implications for how the field understands core social deficits in children with ASD, which should ideally be benchmarked against same-sex peers (male and female). Social attention in ASD females fell on a continuum-greater than their ASD male peers, but not as great as TD females. Overall, their social attention mirrored that of TD males. Improved understanding of the female social phenotype in ASD will enhance early screening and diagnostic efforts and will guide the development of sex-sensitive experimental paradigms and social interventions.

, 2010). A history of ethical violations towards Black research participants (e.g. Tuskegee syphilis trials) has fostered considerable distrust towards clinical research within the Black community (Boulware et al., 2003; Hooper et al., 2019), contributing to low engagement. These disparities are evident in autism clinical practice and research. Black children are less likely to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than White children (Mandell et al., 2009), despite Black and White parents reporting first concerns when their children are of similar ages (Jang et al., 2014), and Black autistic children are often misdiagnosed with other psychiatric disorders (Mandell et al., 2007). Among those diagnosed with autism, clinical presentation is more severe, on average, than that of White children, suggesting that Black children with less impairing symptoms are missed altogether (Jarquin et al., 2011). These diagnostic disparities may reflect providers' racial biases; many Black caregivers of autistic children state that their provider has expressed doubts about the parents' knowledge of autism or made racist assumptions about their family structure or income (Dababnah et al., 2018). These assumptions may cause providers to dismiss Black caregivers' concerns about ASD (Magaña et al., 2015; Pearson & Meadan, 2018). Black caregivers also report distrust of research (Shaia et al., 2020), creating an additional barrier for Black autistic

Background: Autistic adults receive unfavorable first impressions from typically developing (TD) adults, but these impressions improve when TD adults are made aware of their diagnosis. It remains unclear, however, how autistic adults form first impressions of other autistic adults, and whether their impressions are similarly affected by diagnostic awareness. Methods: In this study, 32 autistic and 32 TD adults viewed brief videos of 20 TD and 20 autistic adults presented either with or without their diagnostic status and rated them on character traits and their interest in interacting with them in the future. Results: Findings indicated that autistic raters shared the TD tendency to evaluate autistic adults less favorably than TD adults, but these judgments did not reduce their social interest for interacting with autistic adults as they did for TD raters. Furthermore, informing raters of the diagnostic status of autistic adults did not improve first impressions for autistic raters as they did for TD raters, suggesting that autistic raters either already inferred their autism status when no diagnosis was provided or their impression formation is less affected by awareness of a person's diagnosis. Conclusions: Collectively, these results demonstrate that autistic observers make trait inferences about autistic adults comparable with those made by TD observers-suggesting a similar sensitivity to perceiving and interpreting social signifiers that differ between TD and autistic presentation styles-but unlike their TD counterparts, these trait judgments are not perceived as an impediment to subsequent social interaction and are relatively consistent regardless of diagnostic disclosure.

Recent studies suggest that circumscribed interests (CI) in females with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may align more closely with interests reported in typical female development than those typically reported for ASD males. We used eye-tracking to quantify attention to arrays containing combinations of male, female and neutral images in elementary-aged males and females with and without ASD. A number of condition × sex effects emerged, with both groups attending to images that corresponded with interests typically associated with their biological sex. Diagnostic effects reported in similar studies were not replicated in our modified design. Our findings of more typical attention patterns to gender-typical images in ASD females is consistent with evidence of sex differences in CI and inconsistent with the "Extreme Male Brain" theory of ASD.

Social cognition, social skill, and social motivation have been extensively researched and characterized as atypical in autistic people, with the assumption that each mechanistically contributes to the broader social interaction difficulties that diagnostically define the condition. Despite this assumption, research has not directly assessed whether or how these three social domains contribute to actual real-world social interaction outcomes for autistic people. The current study administered standardized measures of social cognition, social skill, and social motivation to 67 autistic and 58 non-autistic (NA) adults and assessed whether performance on these measures, both individually and relationally between dyadic partners, predicted outcomes for autistic and NA adults interacting with unfamiliar autistic and NA partners in a 5 minute unstructured “get to know you” conversation. Consistent with previous research, autistic adults scored lower than NA adults on the three social domains and were evaluated less favorably by their conversation partners. However, links between autistic adults' performance on the three social domains and their social interaction outcomes were minimal and, contrary to prediction, only the social abilities of NA adults predicted some interaction outcomes within mixed diagnostic dyads. Collectively, results suggest that reduced performance by autistic adults on standardized measures of social cognition, social skill, and social motivation do not correspond in clear and predictable ways with their real-world social interaction outcomes. They also highlight the need for the development and validation of more ecological assessments of autistic social abilities and the consideration of relational dynamics, not just individual characteristics, when assessing social disability in autism.