Exploring the Social and Emotional Impact of Puberty and Adolescence on Autistic People Assigned Female at Birth

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. two authors of this publication are identified as autistic in the project.

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Fearon, B., Pearson, A., & Kapp, S. K. (2025). Exploring the Social and Emotional Impact of Puberty and Adolescence on Autistic People Assigned Female at Birth. Autism in Adulthood. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2024.0298

Publication date: 20 Mar 2025 Added to AutiHub: 6 Jul 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
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Authors

Publication authors
3
Publication authors identified as autistic
2 / 3 (66.7%)
  1. Bethany Fearon
  2. Amy Pearson *
  3. Steven K. Kapp *

Abstract

Background: Emerging research suggests that puberty and adolescence may be particularly difficult for autistic people assigned female at birth (AFAB), but there is currently very little exploration of this transition from a lived experience perspective. In this study, we aimed to retrospectively examine firsthand accounts of puberty and adolescence among AFAB autistic people, the first study to our knowledge to broadly do so. Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 autistic people AFAB about their personal experience of puberty and adolescence. We used reflexive thematic analysis to generate themes from the data. Results: We developed three main themes from the data. Theme 1, “The overwhelming nature of puberty,” focused on issues such as distressing bodily changes and sensory discomfort (e.g., menstruation). Theme 2, “Navigating the adolescent world,” focused on the experience of feeling different, trying to cope with not fitting in, and finding support in others. Theme 3, “Victimization experiences,” highlighted the prevalence of social and sexual violence against our participants. Conclusions: Overall, our findings suggest that puberty and adolescence can be an especially difficult time for autistic people AFAB. In addition to bodily changes such as menstruation, dealing with sensory discomfort and a rapidly changing social landscape can result in extreme distress.

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: 2 Oct 2026 16:12.

Cited references
43
With a DOI
40
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
3
10 / 43 (23.3%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
0 / 43 (0.0%)
References with detected author names
43 / 43 (100.0%)
Without detected author names
0
Without a structured title
0
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
141
From DOI or external metadata
141
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
80 / 141 (56.7%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 61 / 141 (43.3%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
11 / 141 (7.8%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 11 / 80 (13.8%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 8 / 124 (6.5%).
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