ReviewAutism in adulthood2021
A Critical Review of Academic Literature Constructing Well-Being in Autistic Adults.
Review in Autism in adulthood, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- 'Being Autistic is Kind of Who You Are, It's an Identity Rather than a Disorder': Identity Negotiation and Construction Among Autistic Adults Diagnosed in Later Life.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- What Factors Have Been the Most Helpful and Harmful and When? Identifying Key Impacts on Psychosocial Development According to Autistic Adults and Caregivers.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2026Article
- Supporting a 'good life' for autistic children: Autistic adults' and parents' perspectives.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- Investigating the Outcomes and Quality of Support Programs for Autistic Young Adults in Higher Education: A Systematic Review.Autism in adulthood · 2025Article
- Psychological Well-Being in Autistic College Students: Testing and Extending the Social Cognitive Well-Being Model.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2025Article
- Trajectories of positive affect in autistic individuals during the transition to adulthood.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2025Article
- Item Understanding of Common Quality of Life Measures for use with Autistic Adults.Journal of autism and developmental disorders · 2024Article
- A critical reflection on definitions of autistic well-being.Brain and behavior · 2024Article
- "A perfect storm": Autistic experiences of menopause and midlife.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2024Article
- "I have to charge my social battery": Perspectives from autistic young adults on Quality of Life.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2024Article
- Autistic adults' experiences of managing wellbeing and implications for social prescribing.Disability & society · 2024Article
- Editorial: Case reports in autism.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Nurturing the Positive Mental Health of Autistic Children, Adolescents and Adults alongside That of Their Family Care-Givers: A Review of Reviews.Brain sciences · 2023Review
- The Foundations of Autistic Flourishing.Current psychiatry reports · 2023Review
- Measuring subjective quality of life in autistic adults with the PROMIS global-10: Psychometric study and development of an autism-specific scoring method.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2023Article
- Annual Research Review: Shifting from 'normal science' to neurodiversity in autism science.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2022Review
- Exploring life with autism: Quality of Life, daily functioning and compensatory strategies from childhood to emerging adulthood: A qualitative study protocol.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- A capabilities approach to understanding and supporting autistic adulthood.Nature reviews psychology · 2022Review
- Personal Identity After an Autism Diagnosis: Relationships With Self-Esteem, Mental Wellbeing, and Diagnostic Timing.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Fit-for-purpose Psychological Interventions to Support the Well-Being of Autistic Adults: A Systematic Review.Autism & developmental language impairmentsReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The emergence of critical autism studies has fueled efforts to interrogate how autistic people are studied and described in academic literature. While there is a call for research that promotes better well-being for autistic people, little attention has been paid to the concept of well-being itself. Just as the medical model limits critical understandings of autism in the academic literature, so too may psychological accounts of well-being limit, rather than expand, possibilities of living a good life for autistic people. The purpose of this critical review was to identify and critique how well-being in autistic adults is constructed in research. Based on a systematic search of peer-reviewed empirical research published from 2013 to 2020, we identified 63 articles that involved direct data collection with autistic adults and focused on well-being constructs such as quality of life, life satisfaction, and happiness. We examined the articles using the techniques of critical discourse analysis to discern assumptions underlying constructions of autistic well-being, with special attention to the axiological and teleological contributions of autistic perspectives in the research and writing processes. We identified several approaches through which the literature constructed autistic well-being: (1) well-being as an objective uncontested variable, (2) well-being as personal and not fixed, (3) well-being that warrants a specific measure for the autistic population, and (4) well-being as a situated account that privileges and centers autistic people's perspectives. We subject these accounts to critical analysis, pointing to how they limit and open life possibilities for autistic people. We recommend that researchers and practitioners critically reflect on how they engage autistic adults and use their input to create works that support well-being in ways that are meaningful and ethical to autistic adults, as well as do justice to changing broader narratives of autism in research and society. Lay summary:
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.