Date of Award
Summer 2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Stephanie Hood
Second Advisor
Karen Toussaint
Third Advisor
Douglas Woods
Abstract
Previous research has suggested that individuals with autism may struggle with a variety of conversation skills in comparison to their neurotypical counterparts (Morrison et al. 2020). Additionally, previous research has sought to examine conversational benchmarks for neurotypical individuals when conversing with novel conversation partners using a descriptive assessment (Hood et al. 2021). However, these results have not been extended to autistic populations. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to conduct a descriptive assessment of conversational behaviors during conversations with a novel conversation partner for both neurotypical and autistic participants. Keywords: Autism, Conversation,