“I often feel it falls on my shoulders to be the one who takes responsibility”: Perspectives of Autistic Adults, Parents, and Professionals on Cross-neurotype Communication in Educational and Healthcare Settings

Autistic people often experience difficulties in social communication, which have traditionally been explained by autism-related deficits in social cognition and behaviour, with less focus on the role of the contextual factors and communicative partners in effective communication. Here, we investigated the perspectives of autistic adults, parents, and professionals on communication breakdowns between autistic people and nonautistic educational- and healthcare professionals. This study was anchored in the Double Empathy Problem theoretical framework. Through Reflective Thematic Analysis three main themes were constructed:1) Cross-neurotype communication breakdowns are common and multifactorial; 2) Both autistic and nonautistic people can take responsibility for effective communication; and 3) Autism knowledge and understanding matters. Differences in communication styles, the feeling of being different and autism knowledge among professionals have been found to be associated with effective communication. Our findings provide insights which can help to improve communication in educational- and healthcare settings and, thus, contribute to improve the support provided to autistic people.