The Kind of Friend I Think I Am: Perceptions of Autistic and Non-autistic Young Adults.

Finke (2023) asked autistic and non-autistic young adults to describe the kind of friend they think they are.

The survey was done online. No one received an intervention.

The two groups listed different friendship preferences.

The paper only reports the differences; it does not say which style is better.

Dindar et al. (2023) also compared autistic and non-autistic young adults. They saw the same detail-focused style in stories that Finke (2023) saw in friendship choices.

Amaral et al. (2019) looked at younger kids. Autistic pre-teens wanted to help but started helping less often. Finke (2023) shows the gap may last into adulthood, now showing up in friendship views instead of helping acts.

Bunce et al. (2024) found no group difference in sensing personal space, while Finke (2023) still finds friendship differences. Together they warn us: social challenges are selective, not across-the-board.

Chapple et al. (2021) showed autistic adults gain social insight from fiction. Pair that with Finke (2023): preferred friendship style may be shaped more by learning history than by built-in deficit.

When you write social goals, ask the client what friendship feels like to them. Do not assume they want the same closeness, talk frequency, or shared activities that non-autistic peers choose. Match teaching examples to the client’s own friendship view instead of forcing a standard script.