ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism
This article is part of the Research TopicAutism and AdolescenceView all 4 articles
Roadblocks to Independence: Exploring The Roles of Self-Determination and Anxiety on Daily Living Skills in Autistic Transition-Aged Youth
Provisionally accepted
- 1Center for Youth Development and Intervention, Department of Psychology, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, United States
- 2Alabama Life Research Institute, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, United States
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Autistic individuals tend to have lower daily living skills than age-matched peers, and lower skills than what would be predicted by cognitive ability. What is less known are the mechanisms contributing to this profile. This project aimed to examine the influence of anxiety and self-determination on low daily living skills (financial management, self-care, and home care) among autistic youth. A partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was developed and tested with a sample of autistic transition-aged adolescents and adults (n = 79, ages 16 – 27, M age = 19.41). Autistic traits were found to have a significant, positive direct effect on anxiety. The only significant direct paths to daily living skills were from self-determination and cognitive ability, with self-determination having positive direct effects on all three daily living skills and cognitive ability positively relating to financial management. The proposed indirect paths were not significant. Self-determination may be a key mechanistic variable for promoting daily living skills in autistic youth, which could have implications for transition-focused supports.
Keywords: Adaptive Behavior, adulthood, Anxiety, autism, Daily living skills, self-determination, Transition
Received: 23 Dec 2025; Accepted: 31 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Hemming, Kalinyak, Bui and White. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Paige Hemming
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