Social Skills, Contentment Evade Adults with Autism, According to Studies

The social lives of people with autism remain poor well into adulthood, and they struggle to find the sense of well-being and the fulfillment that comes from meeting one’s own goals and expectations, conclude two new reviews of long-term studies in people with the disorder.As the number of autism diagnoses grows, researchers are increasingly examining long-term trajectories of the disorder. One group of people that has been little studied, however, is adults with autism, especially the elderly. Despite estimates that the prevalence of autism in adults approaches that in children, there is little research on how they fare.The two new reports begin to fill in the gap, using systematic and quantitative analyses to assess adult life with autism.