Table 1
Demographic details of participants who contributed to the focus group.
| Gender | Women = 4 Non-binary = 1 Man = 4 |
| Age (yrs) | 45.2 ± 14.8 (mean ± SD) 23–70 (range) |
| Ethnicity | White = 8 Mixed race/other ethnicity = 1 |
| Index of Multiple Deprivations (IMD) decile* | 4.2 ± 2.8 (mean ± SD) 1–9 (range) |
| Additional conditions** | ADHD (5) Dyslexia (1) Dyspraxia (1) Dyscalculia (1) |
[i] *This data was available for only six of the nine participants.
**These are total numbers of participants with each condition, per condition. Some participants may have had more than one additional condition; these have been listed separately, to prevent risk to participant anonymity.
Table 2
Focus group topics.
| TOPIC NUMBER | TOPIC NAME |
|---|---|
| 1) | Signalling in conversations (how participants indicated they liked/disliked/were bored with etc. someone during conversations) |
| 2) | Natural communication habits (what sort of things participants and others did during interactions that felt natural or unnatural) |
| 3) | Talking to other autistic people (what the differences between interacting with autistic vs. non-autistic people were) |
| 4) | Anything else (any other important information about autistic social interaction or communication that participants felt we should know, but weren’t covered by the other topics) |
| 5) | Positive social interactions* (what participants felt made a social interaction positive for them) |
Figure 1
The five themes developed from the thematic analysis.