Examining Associations Between Social Experiences and Loneliness Among Autistic Youth.
For autistic teens and young adults, feeling ignored or feeling bad—rather than simply being alone—creates loneliness.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked 140 autistic teens and young adults to fill out online diaries for two weeks. Each day they logged how they felt during social time, alone time, and whether peers ignored them.
They also tracked minutes spent with people and minutes alone. At the end, everyone answered a short loneliness scale.
What they found
Bad feelings during social or solo moments, plus being ignored, raised loneliness scores. Good feelings when alone lowered them.
Surprise: the raw amount of social or alone time had zero effect. Emotion, not minutes, drove loneliness.
How this fits with other research
Howard et al. (2023) extends these results. They show poor sleep and low social well-being each predict later depression in the same age group. Natalie et al. give the emotional ‘why’ inside social well-being; L et al. show the downstream mental-health cost.
Cai et al. (2026) also extends the story. They find self-compassion cushions the loneliness-depression link for non-autistic adults, but the buffer disappears for autistic adults. Together the papers flag that loneliness hurts autistic clients more because their usual coping tools may not work.
Day et al. (2021) is topically related: camouflaging autistic traits links to higher depression and anxiety in teens. Both studies point to social strain as a core risk, yet they measure different angles—ignoring versus masking—so they complement, not clash.
Why it matters
Stop counting minutes your client spends at lunch tables. Start asking, ‘How did you feel when you were with them?’ A five-minute chat that ends with smiles beats an hour of being ignored. Build programs that teach emotion words, peer-assertion skills, and solo hobbies that feel good. Target the quality of moments, not the quantity.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
To develop targeted interventions aimed at reducing loneliness among autistic youth, it is critical to understand which social experiences are associated with loneliness in this population. The current study examined associations between loneliness, social interaction/solitary experiences (i.e., time spent interacting and alone, feelings during time spent interacting and alone) and peer experiences (i.e., victimization, being ignored, and being included) among autistic youth. Autistic youth (N = 241) between 15 and 26 years old (M = 18.7) completed online surveys that measured their levels of loneliness and the degrees to which they were victimized, ignored, and included by peers. Furthermore, at 9 PM each day for 7 consecutive days, participants were prompted via a smartphone app to report events that occurred within five specific time frames throughout that day. Youth reported how long they participated in each event, whether they were interacting with others or alone, and for the longest lasting activity in each time frame, the degree to which they experienced positive and negative feelings. Results revealed that more negative feelings when interacting and when alone were associated with increased loneliness, whereas more positive feelings when alone were associated with reduced loneliness. Neither time spent interacting nor time spent alone was significantly associated with loneliness. Greater frequency of being ignored was also associated with increased loneliness. Therefore, rather than focusing on the amount of time autistic youth spend interacting and alone, it is equally important for future interventions to consider ways to increase youth's satisfaction with the quantity and quality of their social interactions.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2025 · doi:10.1002/aur.70115