By the Book: An Analysis of Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Condition Co-constructing Fictional Narratives with Peers.

Bottema-Beutel et al. (2016) watched autistic and typical teens build a story together.

Each pair sat side-by-side with one notebook. They took turns writing a made-up story.

The researchers counted who added the next sentence and what that sentence did.

Autistic teens offered fewer turns. Their sentences mostly linked events ("then...").

Typical teens added feelings, jokes, and plot twists.

The story stayed flat when the autistic partner drove; it grew richer when the typical teen led.

Baixauli et al. (2016) pooled 24 studies and found the same gap: autistic speakers tell weaker stories. Kristen’s single-session data lands inside that big picture.

Llanes et al. (2020) moved from talking to writing. Autistic kids wrote shorter personal stories and made more grammar slips. Together these papers show the trouble stays whether the story is spoken or written.

Kauschke et al. (2016) adds a twist: autistic girls use more feeling words than autistic boys, yet still lag behind typical peers. Kristen did not split by gender, so the girl advantage may be hiding inside their average.

When you run social-skills groups, give autistic teens extra scaffolds: sentence starters, feeling-word banks, or a buddy model. Let them rehearse alone first so they enter the pair with ready ideas. Track who adds what; if turns drop, pause and prompt.