Adolescence, the body and self-care: what a large Swedish study reveals about autistic youth and youth with ADHD

One day your child’s body begins to change, and with it come questions that are hard to put into words: a first period, privacy, the wish to have a partner. Many families of autistic young people or young people with ADHD carry an extra worry: will my child know how to ask for help when they need it? Will they feel at ease in an appointment full of bright lights, long waits and personal questions? A Swedish study offers, for the first time with data from an entire population, an answer about how these young people approach sexual and reproductive health services.

What they studied

Since the 1970s, Sweden has had youth clinics that offer free, fully confidential guidance on contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections, condoms and psychosocial support. Stockholm has 31 of them, open to people aged 12 to 22. Most visits are with midwives; physicians step in for more complex cases. Since April 2020, young people can also consult by chat or video call.

The team, led by Karolinska Institutet with Drexel University (USA) and Aarhus University (Denmark), linked the health and administrative records of everyone in that age group who lived in the region between 2018 and 2022: 454,405 young people in all. Of them, 11,850 were autistic, 31,144 had ADHD and 9,126 had both. Each group was compared with peers without those diagnoses, taking into account birth year, household income, parents’ education and migration background. The researchers analyzed 492,762 visits and, among women aged 15 to 22, also contraceptives collected at pharmacies and abortions.

What they found

The vast majority of visits (93.7 %) were in person; digital care was still a small share. Young women used the clinics far more than young men: 39.5 % went at least once, compared with 9.3 %.

The two groups followed opposite paths. Young people with ADHD used these services more than their peers. For in-person visits, women with ADHD had slightly more than twice the odds of having attended (odds ratio 2.02) and men 46 % higher odds (1.46). Autistic youth, by contrast, went less: 0.67 among women and 0.45 among men, an even wider gap for them. Those with both conditions fell somewhere in between.

The most hopeful finding concerns the channel. In chat or video consultations, the gap between autistic youth and everyone else was smaller than in person (0.79 for both women and men; for men, the result was inconclusive). The authors read this as a sign that digital care might reduce some barriers to access, while calling for more data.

Another result helps locate the obstacle. Autistic young women who did reach a clinic returned as often as their peers. According to the team, this suggests the main difficulty lies in taking the first step, not in staying in touch. Among autistic young men, however, the number of visits was also lower.

Autistic young women saw midwives less often (0.64) but consulted physicians more (1.24). Since physicians handle more complex matters, the researchers suggest these visits may have been for reasons other than preventing pregnancy; earlier studies describe more menstrual discomfort among autistic women. They used short-acting contraceptives less (0.60), while long-acting methods were used just as often as by their peers (1.01).

Among women with ADHD, use of long-acting methods was higher (1.91), as were the odds of having had an abortion (2.41). For the authors, the fact that this group uses services so much challenges the idea that their higher risks are explained only by low engagement with care: other factors, such as consistency in using a method, may play a part and still need study.

What is still unknown

The article itself lists its limits:

• It is a registry study: it shows associations, not causes. No one asked these young people why they went or stayed away.
• It had no information on intellectual disability, hormonal or gynecological conditions, or gender identity (only legal sex). Autistic people more often identify as gender minorities, which may also play a role.
• Diagnoses came from administrative codes. Some people in the comparison group may be autistic or have ADHD without knowing it, and women tend to be diagnosed later, so the real differences may be larger.
• Sweden has free universal coverage and a highly digital population. The results may not hold in other countries.
• Chat and video care was new, and chats from three private clinics were missing. It is not yet known whether digital care improves health over time or simply increases the number of contacts.

What we can take home

The study’s discussion names concrete barriers: insufficient sex education, the assumption that autistic people are not interested in love or intimacy, and appointments poorly adapted to the way they communicate and sense the world. There is a lot that can be prepared at home:

1. Name the body clearly, before it changes. Call each part by its name, explain periods or a changing voice ahead of time, and talk about privacy and consent with everyday examples. Visual supports and information in short chunks help, and the study mentions them as facilitators. And do not assume your child will not be interested in relationships: that assumption is one of the barriers described.
2. Rehearse the appointment. If the hardest part is getting through the door, make the place familiar: look at photos of the clinic, explain who will see them, write the questions together and practice asking for help. It is worth finding out whether the service offers chat or video as a first contact.
3. Turn self-care into a routine. A visual schedule, phone alarms or a list on the bathroom door make it easier to remember appointments and personal care without relying on memory in the moment. Over time, the adult steps back and the young person takes the lead.

The next step: meet your child at their developmental stage with TAEO | EdTech

This work leaves a clear lesson: autism and ADHD led to almost opposite patterns, and even within each group there were differences between women and men. A label is not enough to know what someone needs. That is why at TAEO | EdTech we start from what your child already does: the Skills and Competencies Profile places their developmental level across the eight aspects of neurodevelopment and, from there, the platform orders daily activities tailored to them. The activities are the same with or without a diagnosis, and there is no age limit: it follows developmental level, not age.

The study also shows that the barrier is often taking the first step: communicating a need, anticipating a new place, caring for one’s own body. Those skills do not appear all at once in adolescence; they are built much earlier, in the bathroom, at the table or during play. No app changes how a country’s health services work; what we can offer is an ordered path to strengthen, day by day, the communication and independence that later open those doors.

At the TAEO Psychoeducational Organization we have poured more than sixteen years of experience into TAEO | EdTech so that every family has clear activities and a human team that guides them step by step.

For our official launch in December 2026, you can request an invitation for the free trial using the form below.