Abstract
Psychosexual functioning is an important aspect of human development and relationships. A previous study investigated psychosexual functioning of autistic adolescents using the Teen Transition Inventory (TTI), but there is a lack of comprehensive measurement of psychosexual functioning among autistic and non-autistic (NA) adults. To address this gap, the current study adapted the self-report TTI to the Psychosexual Functioning Survey (PSFS) and presented it to 131 autistic (n = 59) and NA adults (n = 72) in the U.S. Comparisons of psychometric properties between the original TTI and the PSFS are shared; the developmental relevancy among some items was changed, and the alphas indicated a difference in the content of certain scales. Differences emerged between autistic and NA adults in both the intra- and interpersonal domains of psychosexual functioning, but not in sexual and intimate behaviors. The findings suggest the persistence of differences from adolescence to adulthood between autistic and NA people and highlight the importance of understanding the unique experiences of adults in psychosexual functioning relative to diagnostic status.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Autism Community Advisory Board for providing suggestions and feedbacks for the questionnaire phrasing and adaptation, Ms. Jess Rocha and Ms. Jordan Sclar for supporting the data collection, and Dr. Ellen Pinderhughes for providing feedbacks and commentary when revising the manuscript.
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Fundings were provided by Tufts University Faculty Research Awards and the study received support from Clinical and Transnational Science Institute at Tufts University in data collection through REDCap (UL1TR002544).
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The original study material development was performed by Linda Dekker and Kirstin Greaves-Lord. The adapted materials were performed by Eileen Crehan. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Xihan Yang. Linda Dekker and Eileen Crehan commented and revised the previous manuscript. The final manuscript was approved by all authors.
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Dr. Dekker’s time was partially supported by the KNAW Ter Meulen Grant/KNAW Medical Sciences Fund, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences. The other authors have no financial or non-financial interests to declare.
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Yang, X., Dekker, L., Greaves-Lord, K. et al. Psychometric Properties of Psychosexual Functioning Survey Among Autistic and Non-autistic Adults: Adapting the Self-Report Teen Transition Inventory to the U.S. Context. J Autism Dev Disord (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06170-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-023-06170-9