Self-Set Goals: Autistic Adults Facilitating Their Self-Determination Through Digitally Mediated Social Stories

Background: Personalized and practical support can facilitate autistic adults' independence and agency and can enable enhanced self-determination while influencing quality of life. Notwithstanding, traditional supports or interventions for autistic adults typically seek to address perceived challenges associated with autism, rather than identify what the autistic person wants support with. In this research, we explored the potential to empower autistic people by attaining their own self-set goals with the support of digitally mediated Social Stories.Methods: We conducted a pre/post quasiexperimental design to investigate the usefulness and effectiveness of digitally mediated Social Stories for autistic adults to support the attainment of their self-set goals. Thirty-three autistic participants self-set goals and self-developed Social Stories using a digital application. We collected closeness-to-goal measures at baseline and after 2 weeks of reading their digitally mediated Social Stories themselves and we compared them with a control condition. We then evaluated the goals participants were interested in. The autistic adults also evaluated the usefulness of the intervention for them.Results: Over 2 weeks, the use of self-set goals, combined with a digitally mediated Social Story, elicited a statistically significant increase in closeness-to-goal ratings with a large effect size. The majority of participants reported that digitally mediated Social Stories were an appropriate and effective form of self-support. Our analysis of the participants' goals indicated that autistic adults predominantly identified a need for support with increasing nonsocial behaviors.Conclusion: Self-developed digitally mediated Social Stories can effectively support autistic adults in reaching their self-set goals. Digitally mediated Social Stories can support reflection on one's goals, increase commitment toward goals, break down tasks into meaningful parts, as well as create meaningful predictions for autistic adults. Thus, digitally mediated Social Stories have the potential to empower autistic adults to self-support reaching self-set goals. Community brief Why is this an important issue? Often when supporting autistic individuals, the focus is on perceived challenges associated with autism, without asking them what they really require. Yet, when we involve autistic individuals in identifying what support they need and what goals they would like to pursue, it can make their lives better. What was the purpose of this study? This study explored how a digitally mediated Social Story can support autistic adults achieve intervention goals they identified and wanted to accomplish on their own. What did we do? We asked 33 autistic adults to identify what goals they are interested in reaching. We then invited them to develop their own Social Stories, using a digital tool, which described how they could reach their goals. We also invited the participants to read their self-developed story for 2 weeks and measured the individuals' progress toward their specific self-set goals. Finally, we asked the autistic adults to share their thoughts about the support tool. What were the results of the study? The results suggest that self-set goals are useful and that self-developed Social Stories, which are developed using a digital tool and accessed on a digital device, can effectively support autistic adults in reaching their self-set goals. The goals that autistic adults self-identified focused mostly on increasing nonsocial behaviors such as gaining skills or completing tasks. Eighty percent of participants indicated that their experience with digitally mediated Social Stories within this study was positive. Autistic adults also reported how they felt more in control of their intervention. What do these findings add to what was already known? Previous studies have shown that Social Stories can be used to support children. This study shows that Social Stories can also be useful for adults. Adults can write their own Social Stories, and the process of using digital Social Stories can help autistic adults achieve the goals they set for themselves. What are the potential weaknesses in the study? Findings are limited to autistic people who have good reading, writing, and comprehension skills. Further research is required to extend the findings to other groups. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future? This tool may serve to support the autistic community in making their own choices about what goals to work toward and how to reach those goals.