Self-Reported Impediments at Home, School, and Community: Autistic Adults' First-Person Accounts of Their Life Trajectories and Derived Pathways

Objectives: Despite suggestions of strengths and abilities of autistic people, it has been an underexplored area in autism research, the primary focus of which has been on examining differences and atypicalities as deficits rather than strengths. Understanding the self-reported impediments via first-person accounts of autistic adults for facilitating the strengths is an important prerequisite for an in-depth comprehension of the unique diversities and potentialities of autistic people, and roadmap development. Objectives Methods: The study is based on qualitative phenomenological inductive thematic analysis through in-depth interviews with 10 verbally- and cognitively-able autistic adults, following purposive and snowball sampling. Methods Results: The impediments at home, school, and communities are presented through the five inductively extracted themes. Additionally, the study proposes future pathways for fostering an effective environment to nurture the innate potentialities of autistic people via a strength-focused lens. Results Conclusion: The study endorses the paradox of strength and atypicalities and advocates a shift from a deficit-focused approach to a strength-focused approach of support, and promotes the neurodiverse model of acceptance and embrace.