Friendship of Autistic Young Adults

This study explored the perspective of behavior consultants on how autistic young adults

formed friendships in the adolescent developmental stage and how they maintained them into

adulthood. The research question for this study was "How do behavior consultants describe the

formation and maintenance of autistic young adults' friendships from adolescence to young

adulthood?" The sample consisted of ten behavior consultants who have been working with an

individual with ASD and have worked as a behavior consultant. The generic qualitative inquiry

method was used to discover how friendships are formed in adolescence by autistic young adults

from the perspective of behavior consultants who are with the young adults daily. Inductive

analysis was used to analyze the data and the results revealed three themes found in autistic

young adults' forming and maintaining friendships from adolescence into young adulthood. The

three themes are the formation and maintenance of friendships of autistic young adults are

similar to non-neurodivergent friendships, transportation issues negatively affect friendships, and

the decreased ability to understand social cues causes an increase in anxiety, which can lead to

negatively affecting the formation and maintenance of friendships. The findings also explored

how technology can affect the formation and maintenance of friendships, showed gender

differences in technology usage, and delved into how social penetration theory can apply to

autistic individuals and friendship formation.