Speaker: Dr. Elizabeth Redcay
Date: December 9th, 2025 12:30-1:30 pm
Location: Language Science Center at UMD, 2130 H.J. Patterson Hall
Zoom Link: go.umd.edu/umarc-talk-zoom
Biopsychosocial predictors of social connection in autistic youth
Social connection is pivotal to mental and physical health. Autistic youth face challenges in forming and maintaining close personal relationships leaving them vulnerable to loneliness and associated negative outcomes like depression or self-harm. In this talk, I discuss a biopsychosocial framework to understand factors that promote social connection and social well-being in autistic and non-autistic adolescents. The first part of the talk focuses on intra-individual factors that predict social well-being. Counter to dominant theories that argue for reduced social reward processing in autism, our work demonstrates that autistic youth who show heightened neural sensitivity to social reward are at greater risk for loneliness. Further, using person-centered profile approaches, we demonstrate distinct relations between cognitive abilities and loneliness for autistic youth. The second part of the talk focuses on dyadic and interpersonal factors that predict social connection and well-being. Counter to prevailing theories that focus on social deficits within the autistic individual, I argue that similarity to one’s social partner is key for positive social outcomes among autistic and non-autistic youth. Importantly, these data highlight that both individual and environmental factors contribute to social outcomes. Thus, to promote social well-being in autistic youth interventions must focus on both autistic and non-autistic individuals to enhance mutual understanding.