Leisure participation is important for well-being and has been attributed to improved quality of life for autistic individuals. Rigorous studies exploring the leisure participation of autistic adults are sparse. This study aimed to compare the type of leisure activity and frequency of participation between autistic adults and neurotypical adults as well as compare and identify factors associated with their leisure satisfaction. Data for 145 autistic and 104 neurotypical adults were obtained from time point one of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Adults with Autism. The primary outcome measure used was the Leisure Satisfaction Scale. Autistic adults were less satisfied with their leisure overall (mean = 3.29, standard deviation = 0.75) compared with neurotypical adults (mean = 3.69, standard deviation = 0.55). Multiple linear regression revealed being younger and reporting less depressive symptoms were significantly associated with higher leisure satisfaction in autistic but not neurotypical adults. Engagement in solitary leisure activities was comparable across participants, but socialising in person was predominated by neurotypical adults. Leisure activity preferences of autistic adults' and the frequency of their leisure participation are important factors for clinicians to understand when working with this population and tailoring well-being interventions.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 July 2024.
All research outputs
#3,059,835
of 32,801,418 outputs
Outputs from Autism
#829
of 2,404 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#47,021
of 363,282 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Autism
#19
of 30 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,801,418 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,404 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 25.9. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 65% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 363,282 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 30 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
