"Do I Need Anything More Specific?": Experiences of Autistic Participants in a Language-Focused Research Study

Autistic advocates have called for researchers to engage with the needs and experiences of autistic people when planning and designing research studies. The purpose of the present study was to better understand the experiences of autistic adults participating in a language research study and how researchers can design more accessible future studies.

The present study was a secondary thematic analysis of data recorded during a larger study of spoken narratives by autistic adults. During virtual research interviews, participants frequently expressed comments about the nature of the research tasks and their experiences of participation in the study. The full interview transcripts were analyzed to identify data relating to participants' subjective experiences of research participation. Thematic analysis was applied to transcripts of all comments not directly elicited by the structured narrative prompts.

Four main topics and their subthemes were established based on analysis of the data set: processing strategies, attitudes toward research, awareness of the research process, and self-reflective comments about the narrative tasks. The main topics and their subthemes are discussed to derive insight into the experiences of autistic research participants.

The findings are especially relevant to researchers and practitioners who conduct spoken language tasks with autistic people. To make research participation more accessible and affirming for autistic people, researchers can share specific information about what to expect before, during, and after participation.