(PS2-77) The utility of the Social Norms Questionnaire in assessing autistic adolescents and adults’ knowledge and application of social rules

Autistic adults tend to experience challenges navigating their social worlds (Müller et al., 2008; Sperry & Mesibov, 2005). Social skills interventions for autistic adults typically utilize a rule-based approach by teaching them social skills using concrete rules and steps of social behaviors (Laugeson & Ellingsen, 2014). Most social situations are more nuanced and require both knowledge of social norms and adaptation according to the social context to inform behavior. The current study aims to explore the utility of the Social Norms Questionnaire (SNQ; Rankin, 2013) to understand autistic adolescents and adults’ application of social rules. The SNQ, originally designed to evaluate social judgments in adults with frontotemporal dementia, asks participants to identify socially acceptable behaviors in hypothetical situations. Items are divided into two subscales to explore adults’ tendency to break or overadhere to social norms. Higher total scores reflect better performance on the SNQ, while higher scores on the subscales indicate more errors. Confirmatory Factor Analysis in a combined sample of 86 16-51-year-olds and 33 24-28-year-olds supported the two-factor structure (Break= 5 items; Overadhere=10 items; CFI=0.962, RMSEA=0.028). In the two samples, SNQ scores (M=14.49, SD=3.00; replication: M=14.60, SD=2.74) are somewhat lower compared to the norms reported in an older (non-autistic) sample (M=20.38, SD=1.64) (Ganguli et al., 2018). SNQ subscale scores suggest that while autistic adolescents and adults rarely break social rules (M=0.75, SD=1.01; replication: M=0.55, SD=0.79), they make more over-adherence errors (M=3.24, SD=2.45; replication: M=3.15, SD=2.29;). Associations between SNQ and level of education, employment status, and cognitive ability will be examined. Findings suggest autistic adolescents and adults are knowledgeable about social norms but may tend to over-adhere to learned social rules. This study also provides preliminary support for the use of the SNQ to identify adults with different needs (i.e., knowledge vs. adaptation of behavior in context). Future directions and implications for social support to promote safety and mitigate negative experiences for autistic people will be discussed, along with ways non-autistic people can confront their own biases around social norms.