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Evaluating How Autistic Traits and Social Anxiety Influence University Transition Outcomes Amongst First Year University Students
First-year university students experience many academic and social challenges. Factors influencing students’ social competency such as social anxiety and level of autistic traits might affect their ability to establish a new social network structure (SNS) and access support at university. Partitioning the long-term impact of social anxiety and autistic traits on transition outcomes by adopting a longitudinal design can help stakeholders develop more focused interventions relevant to students on the autism spectrum, who often experience high levels of social anxiety, eliciting a more positive transition experience.
Objectives:
Using a longitudinal design to assess:
1) Changes in SNS/Perceived Social Support (PSS) across first-year of university
2) How changes in SNS/PSS relate to university transition outcomes
3) Whether social anxiety or autistic traits influence transition outcomes beyond changes in SNS/PSS
Methods:
78 first-year typically developing students (age: M(SD) = 18.24(0.49) years; 10 Male) completed three online questionnaire sessions, each spaced three months apart, during October (T1), December (T2), and March (T3) across first year at university. At T1, students completed: 1) Autism Quotient-28; 2) Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents; 3) Social Network and Perceived Social Support (SNaPSS). SNaPSS measures a) SNS: name up to 20 network members who are important to you; b) PSS: the frequency and quality of support each network member provides across academic, daily-living, and socialisation areas. At T2 and T3, students completed SNaPSS to assess changes in SNS and PSS over time, and also Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (SACQ) to assess university transition outcomes. Analyses included repeated measures MANOVA (Bonferroni corrected for multiple comparisons) and multiple linear regressions.
Results:
Objective 1: At T1, higher levels of social anxiety and autistic traits were significantly associated with a smaller SNS. Over time, students reported decreasing social network size, a relative decrease in percentage of family members, and increase in percentage of friends (Figure 1). For PSS, students perceived a decline in quantity of support received over time. Friends provided the greatest quantity and quality of support compared to family and university staff. Students perceived academic support to be the most infrequent and lowest quality. Objective 2: Changes in SNS and PSS showed differential patterns of association to transition outcomes at T2 (Table 1a) and T3 (Table 1b). Objective 3: When controlling for changes in SNS and PSS, autistic traits did not account for any additional variance associated with transition outcomes. However, greater social anxiety had a significant negative impact on both socialisation and institution attachment at T2 and T3, though not in personal/emotional or academic adjustments.
Conclusions:
Although both social anxiety and autistic traits were related to a smaller network size at T1, only higher social anxiety, and not autistic traits, had a more persistent negative impact on transition outcomes for first-year university students, beyond that accounted for by changes in SNS and PSS over time. Social anxiety is a frequent co-occurring condition in autistic young people. Targeting social anxiety during university transition may support all students to make more positive changes in their SNS/PSS, improving transition outcomes.