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“No Way Out Except From External Intervention”: First-Hand Accounts of Autistic Inertia

This study, called for by autistic people and led by an autistic researcher, is the first to explore ‘autistic inertia,’ a widespread and often debilitating difficulty acting on their intentions. Previous research has considered initiation only in the context of social interaction or experimental co...

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Autores principales: Buckle, Karen Leneh, Leadbitter, Kathy, Poliakoff, Ellen, Gowen, Emma
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8314008/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34326790
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631596
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author Buckle, Karen Leneh
Leadbitter, Kathy
Poliakoff, Ellen
Gowen, Emma
author_facet Buckle, Karen Leneh
Leadbitter, Kathy
Poliakoff, Ellen
Gowen, Emma
author_sort Buckle, Karen Leneh
collection PubMed
description This study, called for by autistic people and led by an autistic researcher, is the first to explore ‘autistic inertia,’ a widespread and often debilitating difficulty acting on their intentions. Previous research has considered initiation only in the context of social interaction or experimental conditions. This study is unique in considering difficulty initiating tasks of any type in real life settings, and by gathering qualitative data directly from autistic people. Four face-to-face and 2 online (text) focus groups were conducted with 32 autistic adults (19 female, 8 male, and 5 other), aged 23–64 who were able to express their internal experiences in words. They articulate in detail the actions they have difficulty with, what makes it easier or harder to act, and the impact on their lives. Thematic analysis of the transcripts found four overarching themes: descriptions of inertia, scaffolding to support action, the influence of wellbeing, and the impact on day-to-day activities. Participants described difficulty starting, stopping and changing activities that was not within their conscious control. While difficulty with planning was common, a subset of participants described a profound impairment in initiating even simple actions more suggestive of a movement disorder. Prompting and compatible activity in the environment promoted action, while mental health difficulties and stress exacerbated difficulties. Inertia had pervasive effects on participants’ day-to-day activities and wellbeing. This overdue research opens the door to many areas of further investigation to better understand autistic inertia and effective support strategies.
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spelling pubmed-83140082021-07-28 “No Way Out Except From External Intervention”: First-Hand Accounts of Autistic Inertia Buckle, Karen Leneh Leadbitter, Kathy Poliakoff, Ellen Gowen, Emma Front Psychol Psychology This study, called for by autistic people and led by an autistic researcher, is the first to explore ‘autistic inertia,’ a widespread and often debilitating difficulty acting on their intentions. Previous research has considered initiation only in the context of social interaction or experimental conditions. This study is unique in considering difficulty initiating tasks of any type in real life settings, and by gathering qualitative data directly from autistic people. Four face-to-face and 2 online (text) focus groups were conducted with 32 autistic adults (19 female, 8 male, and 5 other), aged 23–64 who were able to express their internal experiences in words. They articulate in detail the actions they have difficulty with, what makes it easier or harder to act, and the impact on their lives. Thematic analysis of the transcripts found four overarching themes: descriptions of inertia, scaffolding to support action, the influence of wellbeing, and the impact on day-to-day activities. Participants described difficulty starting, stopping and changing activities that was not within their conscious control. While difficulty with planning was common, a subset of participants described a profound impairment in initiating even simple actions more suggestive of a movement disorder. Prompting and compatible activity in the environment promoted action, while mental health difficulties and stress exacerbated difficulties. Inertia had pervasive effects on participants’ day-to-day activities and wellbeing. This overdue research opens the door to many areas of further investigation to better understand autistic inertia and effective support strategies. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8314008/ /pubmed/34326790 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631596 Text en Copyright © 2021 Buckle, Leadbitter, Poliakoff and Gowen. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Buckle, Karen Leneh
Leadbitter, Kathy
Poliakoff, Ellen
Gowen, Emma
“No Way Out Except From External Intervention”: First-Hand Accounts of Autistic Inertia
title “No Way Out Except From External Intervention”: First-Hand Accounts of Autistic Inertia
title_full “No Way Out Except From External Intervention”: First-Hand Accounts of Autistic Inertia
title_fullStr “No Way Out Except From External Intervention”: First-Hand Accounts of Autistic Inertia
title_full_unstemmed “No Way Out Except From External Intervention”: First-Hand Accounts of Autistic Inertia
title_short “No Way Out Except From External Intervention”: First-Hand Accounts of Autistic Inertia
title_sort “no way out except from external intervention”: first-hand accounts of autistic inertia
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8314008/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34326790
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.631596
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