Difficulties in social interaction faced by autistic college students can lead to challenges in their college experience. Additionally, there remains a gap in understanding regarding barriers to interaction with autistic peers from the neurotypical perspective. Two online studies were conducted to investigate barriers to interacting with college students on the autism spectrum. In Study 1, participants ( n = 35) who were primarily white (86.84%) and female (100%) with a mean age of 22.14 years (SD = 3.17) provided narrative responses to open-ended questions about perceived barriers. These responses were then used to develop two new scales: Barriers to Interaction with Peers on the Autism Spectrum, Perceived Norms (BIPAS-PN), and Self-Report (BIPAS-SR). Study 2 aimed to evaluate the new scales and examine the possible moderating effect of quality of prior contact between perceived barriers and unwillingness to interact, as well as the potential mediating effect of perceived attitudes between self-reported barriers and unwillingness to interact. Participants ( n = 363) were primarily white (87.3%) and female (90.9%) with a mean age of 19.86 (SD = 3.66). Principal component analysis was used to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scales. Results from Study 1 point to a range of barriers to interacting with peers on the autism spectrum, some that are attributed to college students on the autism spectrum and some attributed to neurotypical peers. Participant narrative responses were used to develop two new scales. Study 1 results informed Study 2. In addition to evaluating the psychometric properties of the two scales, we found that perceived barriers were associated with affective attitudes, and barriers attributed to autistic peers were linked to behavioral attitudes. Self-reported barriers were positively associated with unwillingness to interact and negatively associated with quality of prior contact. Perceived attitudes partially mediated the link between self-reported barriers and unwillingness to interact. These findings contribute to the literature regarding autistic college students and shed light on the previously unexplored area of barriers to cross-neurotype interactions.
Chagnon et al. (Fri,) studied this question.