Methodological insights from the inside: developing autistic-friendly interviewing in a group interview space

A neurodiversity-informed approach recognizes the perspectives and experiences of autistic people from an insider perspective, yet little attention has been given to adapting qualitative methods to account for the impact of cognition, sociality, and communication style of both interviewers and participants. The aim of this paper was to contribute to the development of autistic-friendly interviewing in a group interview space.

The paper is a collective reflexive pilot study, exploring experiences of autistic interviewer and autistic participants in group interviews. The method followed five steps, from deciding what type of interview questions to use to test them in the group interviews. An autistic interviewer conducted three group interviews, each with two to three autistic participants. Interviews and analyses were conducted in Swedish, and the data were then translated into English by the authors.

The study identified key insights around four areas: participants' mixed views on the interview guide, the need to accommodate autistic processing styles, the importance of recognizing autistic forms of sociality, and the significance of conducting interviews within an autistic-friendly space that fosters comfort and understanding.

The paper outlines step by step the procedure of conducting group interviews with autistic people. We illustrate ways to capture the possibilities of autistic-friendly interviewing by working with-rather than against-autistic cognition, sociality, and communication styles in interviews with autistic people.