Social Experiences and Identity Development in High School From the Perspectives of Three Autistic Girls

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

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Kofke, M., Brown, H. M., & Lindstrom, L. (2025). Social Experiences and Identity Development in High School From the Perspectives of Three Autistic Girls. Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, 49(2), 112-123. https://doi.org/10.1177/21651434251337452

Journal or book title
Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Volume
49
Issue
2
Pages
112-123
Publication date: 9 May 2025 Added to AutiHub: 5 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) OpenAlex source

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
3
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 3 (33.3%)
  1. Marisa Kofke
  2. Heather M. Brown *
  3. Lauren Lindstrom

Abstract

Although autistic students who identify as girls spend much of their time at school, little is known about their perspectives or the effects of school experiences on the development of their autistic identity. This study focuses on the school experiences of three western U.S. teenage autistic girls enrolled in social skills instruction and the impact of this instruction on their identity. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis methods, the authors present the findings in four themes: sense of otherness, masking to survive, learning about autism and neurodiversity, and autistic self-construction. Implications from this study include incorporating neurodiversity concepts into high school to support the positive autistic identity development of autistic youth who identify as girls.

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: 3 Oct 2026 01:00.

Cited references
74
With a DOI
63
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
10
16 / 74 (21.6%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
4 / 74 (5.4%)
References with detected author names
71 / 74 (95.9%)
Without detected author names
3
Without a structured title
3
Without a stable identifier
8
References with raw author names still to review
4
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
241
From DOI or external metadata
241
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
24
144 / 241 (59.8%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 97 / 241 (40.2%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
26 / 241 (10.8%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 26 / 144 (18.1%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 21 / 217 (9.7%).
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