What is it like to be an adolescent with ASD?

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What is it like to be an adolescent with ASD? Researchers need your feedback!

I am a doctoral student at Michigan State University and I work in schools with students who have autism spectrum disorders (ASD). My professor and I believe it’s important to hear the views of students with ASD. If you are in middle school or high school and have autism, Aspergers, or consider yourself “on the spectrum”, we want to hear from you. We’re hoping to learn more about your experiences as an adolescent with an autism spectrum disorder. Your responses are important in helping us to understand how middle and high schools can better support individuals with ASD. Please click the following link to participate in a 10-15 minute survey. Thank you in advance for your help.

Please go to: surveymonkey dot com /s/adolescentvoices

(I apologize for the multiple posts!)

what is the maximum age to partake ?, because i consider anyone under 25 to be adolescent.

There is a question on the survey that asks for your age, but nobody is prevented from completing the survey. However, the survey is meant for students who are in middle school and high school and some questions may not be relevant if you are no longer in school. You raise a very good point about when adolescence begins and ends though! This is something that is often discussed in research and is important to consider. Perhaps my future research will include college-aged students as well. Thanks for your question!

Thank you for creating this survey, and for taking an interest in adolescents with ASD.

As someone who just graduated from high school, I think one of the greatest challenges teens with ASD are facing is lack of peer understanding. Most people know from TV what autism/Asperger's is, but when meeting someone with a spectrum disorder in real life, they may lose patience, shun them, make fun of them, etc. It's a shame because when these people watch Rainman or Big Bang Theory or whatever, they get upset when the ASD individual is ostracized. Yet, it is perfectly acceptable for them to do this to people on the spectrum is real life, perhaps because autism is a spectrum disorder and there are many shades of it which do not perfectly match the stereotypical autistic figure, so they attribute atypical behavior to just plain strangeness, not the individual's ASD disorder. I think that just as there is racial equality and anti-bullying education in schools, students need to be taught how to properly treat people with ASD through some sort of education videos. It is a shame that even normally decent people do not show ASD individuals respect/understanding, and that they say some very hurtful things because they don't recognize teens on the spectrum have feelings, too.

You make such a good point about educating people about ASD. I really appreciate your input and will keep your post in mind as I continue my work. Thank you so much!