Sticking With It: Psychotherapy Outcomes for Adults with ASD in a College Counseling Center Setting

Young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience high rates of comorbid mental health concerns in addition to distress arising from the core symptoms of autism. Many adults with ASD seek psychological treatment in outpatient facilities in their communities that are not specifically geare...

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Main Author: Anderberg, Emily Irene
Format: Others
Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5959
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6958&context=etd
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spelling ndltd-BGMYU2-oai-scholarsarchive.byu.edu-etd-69582019-05-16T03:31:06Z Sticking With It: Psychotherapy Outcomes for Adults with ASD in a College Counseling Center Setting Anderberg, Emily Irene Young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience high rates of comorbid mental health concerns in addition to distress arising from the core symptoms of autism. Many adults with ASD seek psychological treatment in outpatient facilities in their communities that are not specifically geared towards individuals with ASD. However, few studies have looked at the effectiveness of standard psychotherapeutic care in adults with ASD. This study aims to discover how individuals with autism spectrum disorders fare in psychotherapy within a college counseling setting compared to their neuro-typical peers. Clients with ASD (n = 94) or possible ASD (n = 109) were identified from counseling center case notes and the Outcome Questionnaire-45 (OQ) was used to track distress at each session. Clients with ASD showed no difference in level of distress at intake compared to their neuro-typical peers (n = 29,326) and improved about the same amount from pre- to post-treatment. However, students with ASD stayed in treatment for significantly more sessions than neuro-typical clients. Overall, adult therapy clients with autism spectrum disorder appear to benefit from typical counseling center services as much as their neuro-typical peers. They also tend to stay in therapy longer than their peers. Results are discussed with implications for counseling centers and future research directions. 2016-07-01T07:00:00Z text application/pdf https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5959 https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6958&context=etd http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/ All Theses and Dissertations BYU ScholarsArchive autism spectrum disorder counseling treatment outcomes adults
collection NDLTD
format Others
sources NDLTD
topic autism spectrum disorder
counseling
treatment
outcomes
adults
spellingShingle autism spectrum disorder
counseling
treatment
outcomes
adults
Anderberg, Emily Irene
Sticking With It: Psychotherapy Outcomes for Adults with ASD in a College Counseling Center Setting
description Young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience high rates of comorbid mental health concerns in addition to distress arising from the core symptoms of autism. Many adults with ASD seek psychological treatment in outpatient facilities in their communities that are not specifically geared towards individuals with ASD. However, few studies have looked at the effectiveness of standard psychotherapeutic care in adults with ASD. This study aims to discover how individuals with autism spectrum disorders fare in psychotherapy within a college counseling setting compared to their neuro-typical peers. Clients with ASD (n = 94) or possible ASD (n = 109) were identified from counseling center case notes and the Outcome Questionnaire-45 (OQ) was used to track distress at each session. Clients with ASD showed no difference in level of distress at intake compared to their neuro-typical peers (n = 29,326) and improved about the same amount from pre- to post-treatment. However, students with ASD stayed in treatment for significantly more sessions than neuro-typical clients. Overall, adult therapy clients with autism spectrum disorder appear to benefit from typical counseling center services as much as their neuro-typical peers. They also tend to stay in therapy longer than their peers. Results are discussed with implications for counseling centers and future research directions.
author Anderberg, Emily Irene
author_facet Anderberg, Emily Irene
author_sort Anderberg, Emily Irene
title Sticking With It: Psychotherapy Outcomes for Adults with ASD in a College Counseling Center Setting
title_short Sticking With It: Psychotherapy Outcomes for Adults with ASD in a College Counseling Center Setting
title_full Sticking With It: Psychotherapy Outcomes for Adults with ASD in a College Counseling Center Setting
title_fullStr Sticking With It: Psychotherapy Outcomes for Adults with ASD in a College Counseling Center Setting
title_full_unstemmed Sticking With It: Psychotherapy Outcomes for Adults with ASD in a College Counseling Center Setting
title_sort sticking with it: psychotherapy outcomes for adults with asd in a college counseling center setting
publisher BYU ScholarsArchive
publishDate 2016
url https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/5959
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6958&context=etd
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