RESUMO
Background: While many studies have examined where and with whom autistic people live, very few have looked at autistic people's experience of moving home. Choosing where to live, and being able to move residence, could be important for autonomy, and we therefore undertook a systematic review to identify studies about autistic adults' experience of moving home. Methods: We entered search terms relevant to autism and moving home into six databases and Google Scholar. After screening the titles and abstracts, we identified a final set of articles and screened the full text. We then checked the reference lists for potentially relevant articles; then, we conducted a search for articles that cited our final set of articles. Three raters assessed each included article for methodological quality. Results: The search strategy identified a total of 311 articles (initial search, ancestry searching, articles from other sources). After deduplication, we screened a total of 165 articles for eligibility. A final set of seven articles was identified. Our narrative synthesis of the articles suggests that both autistic people and the relatives of autistic people think living independently is a source of positive personal development. However, autistic people reported that poor employment prospects impacted on their financial independence and hence independent living. Parents highlighted concerns about their offspring's personal care, safety, and the difficulty of navigating the housing system for those autistic people with co-occurring intellectual disability. Conclusions: Taken together, our review suggests that autistic people and those who care for them have a positive view of independent living and are aware of the barriers to achieving this. Our review highlights a gap in the understanding of autistic adults' experience of moving home. We briefly describe our ongoing research project [the "Moving (as an) Autistic Person" project] exploring autistic people's experiences of moving house.
Why is this topic important?: Many research studies find that autistic people do not live independentlymany autistic people live with their parents or in sheltered accommodation. As our knowledge about autistic people, and the diversity of their life experiences, increases, it is important to investigate a range of real-life transitions. So far, the transition to independent living has not been reviewed (specifically, the process of moving from one living place to another). What is the purpose of this article?: We reviewed published studies to try and find all the available studies that may have looked at the process of moving home for autistic people. What did the authors do?: We designed a search method to find all the articles that were relevant to this question. We searched six academic databases and used Google Scholar. What did you find about this topic?: We found that there were no studies which looked at the specific question of what autistic people experience when they move home. However, we did find some studies which looked at the benefits of living independently (with reports from autistic people and from the parents of autistic people). We also found one study which looked at the choices autistic people have in where, and with whom, they live. What do the authors recommend?: Based on the included studies, it does seem that autistic people may benefit from living independently. However, we do note that the issue of independent living cannot be examined without consideration of other factors, such as employment. Also, it is not universally the case that all autistic adults prefer, or will benefit from, living independently. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?: We aim to use the findings of this review, alongside our ongoing mixed-methods study of autistic people's experiences, to design a tailored co-produced resource to help autistic people plan for moving home.
