Nearly 85% of adults on the autism spectrum are unemployed, although nearly 70% of those who are unemployed express a desire and willingness to work. The job interview has been identified as a significant obstacle to obtaining employment by young adults on the spectrum. A growing field of research has been focused on evaluating innovative training tools to improve interview skills. Our previous work shows that a virtual reality job interview training (VR-JIT) tool improves certain job interview skills (such as sounding professional, establishing rapport), but does not improve the ability to speak about personal strengths and abilities. The current study combined VR-JIT with a new training tool: Kessler Foundation Strength Identification and Expression (KF-STRIDE), an intervention grounded in principles of positive psychology. KF-STRIDE targets identification of personal character strengths and expressing those strengths to employers in a socially appropriate way.

The current study evaluated data from 20 autistic youth, randomized to an experimental group (n=10) and a services-as-usual (SAU) control group (n=10). Those in the experimental group participated in a 12 session intervention (9 sessions using VR-JIT and 3 sessions in KF-STRIDE). Each session was roughly one hour. Job interview performance was assessed by video-recorded mock job interviews rated by blinded assessors pre- and post- the intervention. Paired samples t-tests were conducted to examine differences in job interview skills from baseline to follow up in both groups.

The intervention group showed a significant improvement from baseline to follow-up in job interview skills in general (p = .004), and specifically sharing strengths about themselves to a future employer (p = .004). No significant differences were seen from baseline to follow-up in the SAU group. Conclusions: Individuals on the autism spectrum are significantly underemployed, which negatively impacts one’s ability to lead an independent life. Two innovative tools: VR-JIT and KF-STRIDE successfully improved job interview skills, including the ability to identify and express personal strengths. These findings indicate that these combined tools may help to improve employment skills for individuals on the autism spectrum.