Purpose in adolescents diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder

Abstract

Introduction: Drawing from positive youth development theory, the research team examined purpose in life among adolescents diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Methods: Members of the research team conducted paired interviews about purpose in life with adolescents diagnosed with an ASD and one of each adolescent's parents. Data collection took place in the south-central region of the US. The eight adolescent participants were in middle school, high school, and early college. The research team open-coded interview transcripts and condensed these codes into meta-codes to aid in determining the form of purpose for each participant.Results: Similar to what has been found in studies of neurotypical youth, participants distributed diversely across the forms of purpose, with all but one participant demonstrating some aspect of purpose. Conclusions: The authors recommend practitioners consider the variety of supports they could provide to adolescents diagnosed with an ASD and consider encouraging these youth when their creative interests are sparked. Additionally, the research team invites the scholarly community to further investigate specific contextual supports and to develop ways of measuring purpose that do not rely on advanced language and social skills.

Purpose in Life

“…Cognitive limitations will clearly limit an individual's ability to conceptualize, formulate, and adhere to a sense of purpose. Notably, although some youth with autism may not develop a sense of purpose, findings from one qualitative study suggest that many, if not most, neuroatypical youth with verbal skills sufficient to participate in the research, that is, generally higher functioning on the autism spectrum, are capable of developing a sense of purpose (Quinn et al, 2019). Significantly lower scores on purpose in life measures are also associated with certain personality traits, in particular with higher scores on harm avoidance, neuroticism, and impulsivity (Burrow and Spreng, 2016; Hill and Weston, 2019; Mei et al, 2021).…”