Perception of friendship in children with lighter form of autism spectrum disorder

This thesis deals with friendship in children with autism spectrum disorder. The literature indicates that the friendships of children with ASD are of lower quality than the friendships of neurotypical peers. High-quality friendships act as protection against bullying, which children with ASD are exposed to more often than typically developing children. Children with ASD may encounter problems with loneliness, bullying or difficulties in establishing and maintaining friendships in their journey to make friends. The aim of this work was to compare the quality of friendships between children with ASD aged 11 to 15 and their neurotypical peers and to gain deeper insight into the perception of friendships of children with ASD. The Friendship Qualities Scale (Bukowski et al., 1994) was used to compare the quality of friendship. A significantly lower score for scale help was found. No significant difference was found between children with and without ASD in the other scales. It was also found that children with ASD have significantly fewer friends than children without the disorder. A semi-structured interview with five respondents was used to explore the perception of friendship among children with ASD. The thematic analysis showed that for children with ASD, a friend is someone they can rely on, with..