Stress and well-being in autistic adults: Exploring the moderating role of coping.
Teaching engagement coping shields autistic adults from stress better than any avoidance trick.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked 86 autistic adults to fill out three online surveys. One measured daily stress, one asked about coping style, and one tracked well-being.
The survey split coping into two buckets: engagement (problem solving, looking for the bright side) and disengagement (giving up, avoidance).
Adults were aged 25-65 and lived in the community. No lab visits, just honest answers from their own homes.
What they found
When stress went up, adults who used engagement coping kept their well-being steady.
Adults who leaned on disengagement coping felt worse as stress climbed.
In short, the way you cope decides whether stress knocks you down or not.
How this fits with other research
Rumball et al. (2021) also surveyed autistic adults and found that thought suppression fuels PTSD and anxiety. Their result looks opposite, but both studies agree: avoiding problems hurts mental health.
De Laet et al. (2025) studied caregivers, not autistic adults, and saw the same pattern: positive coping protects well-being. The benefit crosses roles.
van der Miesen et al. (2024) reviewed ACT for parents and showed teaching coping skills can lift mood. Melanie’s data say the same tools should work for the autistic adults themselves.
Why it matters
You can’t erase stress, but you can choose the buffer. Add brief coping lessons to adult sessions: practice breaking a problem into steps or finding one good thing in a tough day. Five minutes of coaching can save weeks of mood crashes.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The wider stress literature points to negative associations between stress and well-being. Similarly, the use of engagement coping strategies and disengagement coping strategies in the face of stress are related to improved and reduced well-being respectively. However, in the autistic population stress and coping research is limited to date, and the extent to which coping may moderate the relationship between stress and well-being is not known. Using data from an Australian online study, we explored the potential moderating (i.e. buffering or exacerbating) role of coping in the relationship between stress and well-being in a sample of autistic adults (N = 86). Our findings indicated that increased stress was associated with lower well-being. Further, moderation analyses showed that while both engagement coping (e.g. problem solving, positive appraisal) and disengagement coping (e.g., self-distraction, being in denial) strategies had significant positive and negative direct effects on well-being respectively; engagement coping also moderated the relationship between stress and well-being, buffering the impact of stress on well-being. Our results illustrate the different underlying mechanisms by which coping strategies may be associated with stress and well-being. They also highlight the potential protective role of engagement coping strategies, which can be incorporated into the promotion and maintenance of well-being in autistic adults.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2023 · doi:10.1002/aur.3028