A Feasibility Test of an Online Class to Prevent Dating Violence for Autistic Youth: a Brief Report

The purpose of this brief report is to share the results of a feasibility test of a six-session online class on dating violence prevention for autistic adolescents. The feasibility of delivering the online intervention was tested with a sample of N = 11 autistic youth ages 15–19 years old. The intervention was delivered once a week for 6 weeks. Participants completed self-report surveys at baseline and approximately 6 weeks after baseline. Participants also participated in one-on-one telephone interviews approximately 2 weeks after the intervention. It was feasible to teach an online class to autistic adolescents about healthy dating relationships and dating violence. Participant feedback suggested the class was acceptable to users. Further, we found it was feasible to collect self-report survey data on dating violence-related topics from autistic youth using an internet platform. Although the study was not designed to test intervention efficacy, we did observe changes in participant opinions in the desired direction about the healthiness of dating behaviors. Autistic youth have romantic and sexual relationships and deserve the benefit of healthy relationships education that is designed for them and effective for them. The results of this feasibility test suggest it is possible to deliver an online class to autistic youth and to collect dating abuse-related data from them online, indicating that a larger-scale, two-group evaluation study is feasible and warranted.