Unlike mercy, our quality of life does NOT droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven. Instead, our perception of how well (or not) our lives are is based on a number of factors relating to job satisfaction, social relationships, and physical wellbeing. Or so we thought. Turns out, all measures of quality of life may not be created equally, especially for autistic individuals. This week, we hit the research journals to identify what does and doesn’t matter in improving quality of life (and, what research still has to find out!).

This episode is available for 1.0 LEARNING CEU.

Articles discussed this episode:

Bernhardt, J.B., Larn, G.Y.H., Thomas, T., Cubells, J.F., Bohlke, K. Reid, M., & Rice, C.E. (2020). Meaning in measurement: Evaluating young autistic adults’ active engagement and expressed interest in quality-of-life goals. Ausitm in Adulthood, 2, 227-242. doi: 10.1089/aut.2019.0081

Burgess, A.F. & Gutstein, S.E. (2007). Quality of life for people with autism: Raising the standard for evaluating successful outcomes. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 12, 80-86. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-3588.2006.00432.x

Ayres, M., Parr, JR., Rodgers, J., Mason, D., Avery ,L., & Flynn, D. (2017). A systematic review of quality of life of adults on the autism spectrum. Autism, 22, 774-783. doi: 10.1177/1362361317714988

If you're interested in ordering CEs for listening to this episode, click here to go to the store page. You'll need to enter your name, BCBA #, and the two episode secret code words to complete the purchase. Email us at [email protected] for further assistance.