Table 4.
Themes from participants’ responses about their perceptions of the preparation condition.
| Themes | ASD | TD | Example quotes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prep useful | |||
| Prep useful (general comments) | 3 | 8 | It was fine because I could then think about it when I was at home, which I find things easier at home. (Autistic participant) . . . (making notes) certainly helped me keep to topic a little bit. (Autistic participant) . . . notes were useful . . . so I could focus on one specific thing ’cause sometimes my brain can go through like 50 different thoughts at the same time. So it helped me like focus on that one thing. (Autistic participant) . . . it takes me a while to . . . search through my memories and to find a specific um thing, but once I know er about it, I can quickly think back to that and to, um to remember it um, so without the preparation questions I would’ve had to, think for a long time before I remembered each individual event. (Autistic participant) |
| Would have been difficult without prep | 3 | 5 | |
| Making notes helpful | 9 | 12 | |
| Reduced anxiety | 1 | 0 | |
| Memory aid | |||
| General memory prompt benefits | 2 | 4 | |
| Had examples ready | 4 | 2 | |
| Would need more thinking time without preparation | 6 | 6 | |
| Avoided over-preparing | 1 | 1 | |
| Effects on support | |||
| Support did not differ/conflicted | 2 | 1 | |
| Changed recall (in semantic prompting condition) | 0 | 1 | |
| Changed recall | 1 | 1 | |
| Prep not useful | |||
| Making notes unhelpful | 1 | 0 | |
| Prep unhelpful | 1 | 0 | |
ASD: autism spectrum disorder; TD: typically developing.