An Online Healthy Relationships Class for Autistic Adults (HEARTS): A Randomized Controlled Trial

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

About the autistic author marker

Rothman, E. F., Yajima, M., Cusano, J. L., Graham Holmes, L., Lean, K. S., & White, S. W. (2026). An Online Healthy Relationships Class for Autistic Adults (HEARTS): A Randomized Controlled Trial. Autism in Adulthood. https://doi.org/10.1177/25739581261428658

Publication date: 17 Mar 2026 Added to AutiHub: 24 Aug 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
6
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 6 (16.7%)

Abstract

Background: Many autistic adults are interested in having more and better-quality friendships and dating relationships, but there are too few evidence-based interventions that support building healthier peer relationships. Healthy Relationships on the Autism Spectrum (HEARTS) is a six-session, online class codeveloped with autistic people and co-delivered by teams that include at least one autistic expert who operates from the core idea that autistic people can be their authentic selves and can create and maintain healthy, supportive, mutual intimate partnership and friendship relationships. Methods: This preregistered randomized controlled trial study investigated the effects of HEARTS for autistic individuals aged 18 years old and older. Autistic individuals (N = 92) were randomly assigned to either HEARTS or an active control condition (ACC). The purpose of this study was to find out if the HEARTS class had an impact on participants’ self-directed relationship satisfaction goals, social motivation, experiences with aggressive acts in dating relationships, attitudes toward rejection, or hostile automatic thoughts 12 weeks after the HEARTS class ended. Results: Compared with the ACC group, participants in HEARTS showed statistically significant improvement in relationship satisfaction. There were no improvements in experiences with aggressive acts in dating relationships, social motivation, hostile automatic thoughts, or rejection sensitivity. Conclusions: HEARTS is feasible to implement and was generally well-received by the community as well as effective for improving relationship satisfaction.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 12 Sep 2026 01:04.

Cited references
65
With a DOI
62
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
3
7 / 65 (10.8%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
1 / 65 (1.5%)
References with detected author names
64 / 65 (98.5%)
Without detected author names
1
Without a structured title
1
Without a stable identifier
3
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
290
From DOI or external metadata
290
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
5
86 / 290 (29.7%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 204 / 290 (70.3%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
8 / 290 (2.8%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 8 / 86 (9.3%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 7 / 273 (2.6%).
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