‘A certain magic’ – autistic adults’ experiences of interacting with other autistic people and its relation to Quality of Life: A systematic review and thematic meta-synthesis - Georgina Watts, Catherine Crompton, Catherine Grainger, Joseph Long, Monique Botha, Mark Somerville, Eilidh Cage, 2024
There is an increasing focus on research exploring autistic communication and community. In this review, we systematically collate and analyse how autistic adul...
Research has suggested that autistic people enjoy spending time with other autistic people and find them easier to talk to. We wanted to find out what autistic people say about spending time with other autistic people and whether this makes their life better. We found 52 papers which described this and reviewed what they found. We found that many autistic people had positive experiences of spending time with other autistic people and these experiences had positive impact on their lives in a range of different ways. The papers did not tell us whether this also happens for autistic people with a learning disability. More research is needed to find out more about why spending time with other autistic people helps some autistic people.
Studies suggest autistic people experience better rapport (Crompton, Sharp, et al., 2020) and more effective communication (Crompton, Ropar, et al., 2020) when interacting with autistic people rather than non-autistic people. Autistic adolescents are more likely to initiate and reciprocate interactions with autistic than non-autistic peers (Chen et al., 2021).
Studies indicate community contact may benefit QoL for autistic people. Contact with other autistic people provides access to narratives challenging deficit-based perceptions of autistic personhood facilitating positive autistic social identities (Kapp et al., 2013). Increased identification with a positive autistic social identity has been associated with better mental health and may mediate the impact of stigma on well-being (R. Cooper et al., 2021).
Furthermore, successful communication experiences (Crompton, Ropar, et al., 2020) and rapport (Rifai et al., 2022) between autistic people may have a positive impact on QoL (Black et al., 2022). Distinctly autistic social communication styles may facilitate communication and friendships between autistic people (Heasman & Gillespie, 2019), benefitting QoL domains including Social Inclusion and Interpersonal Relations.
The magic referred to in this theme title reflects the idea something special occurs within autistic-autistic interactions; ‘when two autistic people are together in the same room or even linked by written communication, a certain magic is created, like, electricity in the air’ (Schneid & Raz, 2020, p. 5). This is relevant to Social Inclusion and Interpersonal Relations QoL domains – different aspects of this phenomenon are captured by four subthemes.
Being ‘One of us’ reflects a sense of shared identity and belonging within a group expressed across multiple papers. Autistic people recognised themselves in others and shared experiential knowledge, meaning they felt understood and accepted. Schneid and Raz (2020) described how all of their autistic participants ‘said that autists would understand them better’ (p. 5).
Mutual understanding between autistic people created a sense of closeness. Many papers echoed experiences described by Botha and Frost (2020) as ‘The space among autistic people was presented as safe, validating and supportive’ (p. 8). Acceptance and shared understanding with other autistic people were associated with an increased sense of belonging:
As lovely as all my neurotypical friends are, I feel I belong there [with autistic people], and I am like everybody else. I have never had that before . . . I feel like I understand people and they understand me. (Crompton, Ropar, et al., 2020, p. 1444)
This sense of Social Inclusion contrasted with previous experiences of interactions with non-autistic people, with many describing joy on discovering “wow, there are others like me!” (Mattys et al., 2018, p. 328) and a sense of relief: “Finally I’m not alone” (Tan, 2018, p. 166).
Many participants said Interpersonal Relations with other autistic people were easier than with non-autistic people. ‘Ease of communication’ was frequently described as speaking the same language: ‘With autistic people, who speak my language . . . it goes fantastically well most of the time’ (Livingston et al., 2019, p. 771). Participants believed ‘communication styles were similar between autistic people, and this made interactions more comfortable that it was easier to follow conversations and understand what people mean’ (Crompton, Hallett, et al., 2020, p. 1443), which meant ‘interactions with autistic people were less effortful and tiring’ (Cummins et al., 2020, p. 684).
Participants emphasised the facilitating role of acceptance: ‘Being in these comfortable and accepting environments ‘allows [them] to relax [and] be able to communicate effectively and honestly’’ (Howard & Sedgewick, 2021, p. 2272).
