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This study explored the perspective of behavior consultants on how autistic young adults
formed friendships in the adolescent developmental stage and how they maintained them into
adulthood. The research question for this study was "How do behavior consultants describe the
formation and maintenance of autistic young adults' friendships from adolescence to young
adulthood?" The sample consisted of ten behavior consultants who have been working with an
individual with ASD and have worked as a behavior consultant. The generic qualitative inquiry
method was used to discover how friendships are formed in adolescence by autistic young adults
from the perspective of behavior consultants who are with the young adults daily. Inductive
analysis was used to analyze the data and the results revealed three themes found in autistic
young adults' forming and maintaining friendships from adolescence into young adulthood. The
three themes are the formation and maintenance of friendships of autistic young adults are
similar to non-neurodivergent friendships, transportation issues negatively affect friendships, and
the decreased ability to understand social cues causes an increase in anxiety, which can lead to
negatively affecting the formation and maintenance of friendships. The findings also explored
how technology can affect the formation and maintenance of friendships, showed gender
differences in technology usage, and delved into how social penetration theory can apply to
autistic individuals and friendship formation.
