Self-Determination & Neurodiversity in Social Supports for Autistic Adolescents & Young Adults

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Abstract

Social skills interventions are among the most implemented supports for autistic individuals across educational and community contexts, yet growing scholarship raises concerns about the extent to which these interventions align with autistic individuals’ own goals, values, and definitions of social success. This qualitative study examined autistic young adults’ lived experiences of self-determination within social skills intervention contexts, with particular attention to goal-setting processes, professional influence, and opportunities for agency. Fourteen autistic young adults (ages 18–26) in the United States participated in semi-structured interviews, which were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings indicate that participants experienced social skills interventions as most meaningful when they centered the voices of autistic participants, offered genuine opportunities for choice, and treated goals as collaboratively constructed rather than professionally imposed. One-on-one supports often facilitated shared decision making and alignment with personally meaningful goals, while group-based interventions both enabled and constrained self-determination depending on structure, facilitation practices, and power dynamics. In contrast, didactic and normalization-focused models were described as limiting autonomy, prioritizing neurotypical norms, and contributing to disengagement, masking, and misalignment with participants’ social priorities. These findings extend prior qualitative work by explicitly examining how self-determination is enacted or constrained within social skills interventions, highlighting goal setting as a relational and ethical process rather than a procedural task. Implications include the need for autonomy-supportive, participatory intervention models that position autistic individuals as knowledgeable agents and align social supports with autistic-defined needs, values, and aspirations.

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