6 accomplishments were varied and included memory skills, typing skills, and artistic ability. For example, 10-year-old Cabot spoke with pride of his brother’s artistic ability, “He loves to draw. I think he’s an awesome artist; although he does not think so.” The emotional bonding between our par- ticipants and their siblings with ASDs was also apparent in their responses. Breanna talked about her feelings when she was told that her brother had missed her, “My dad told me that night [when Breanna had attended a slumber party] he was asking about me. And I was like, “Oh, he’s asking about me,” so I went and gave him a hug.” Ruby, age 14, described her brother as “one of the coolest people I know.” Perhaps due to their love of their siblings with ASDs, our participants also identiﬁed their sadness when their siblings and/or other children with disabilities were not socially ac- cepted. RaeEllen described her feelings, saying, “I’m very sad at the way some kids are treated, with special needs.” Bre- anna, age 11, also spoke of her concern and empathy for her brother’s lack of friends: I don’t know if it is worried or sad, but he does not have very many friends. He has never had a friend come over, or like most of his friends from school I know, because they are only 2 years younger than me, and I play with them sometimes. It makes me sad that he does not have more than a couple of friends. Asia, age 14, expressed her concern about possible bully- ing at school: I get nervous that kids would make fun of him in the halls. Whenever I heard that from kids in junior high, I always gave them a piece of my mind. I’m nervous that kids at school don’t think before they speak. And they can really hurt feelings of kids like Nate who cannot understand them. Another issue that dominated the feelings of our partic- ipants was the heightened sense of responsibility they felt for their siblings. When describing the care of his brother, Mitch, age 10, said, “Yeah. That’s my job. Because it kind of falls on my shoulders a little bit. Um, it’s a—just kind of like a responsibility.” Apparently, this responsibility weighed on Mitch enough that he addressed it with his mother: I asked my mom. “I don’t really want to do this all my life when I’m older; when I’m married, have kids.’ And she said, “That’s why we try to help and all that good stuﬀ. And just, you’re supposed to have your life and he’s supposed to have his. We’re not saying blow him oﬀ, but keep in touch, have help, be there once a week.” Yeah, okay. Autism Research and Treatment Sometimes it is scary, because if someone would try to kidnap him, he wouldn’t know what to do. He is not going to be able to scream and shout like me or somebody else would. It’s kind of scary. Same with swimming. I get nervous if he is swimming by himself, like if me and my friends aren’t out there or something. Like I do have occasional bad dreams about him drowning or dying because I cannot help him. Fear, a heightened sense of responsibility, pride, and love dominated the feelings of our participants when they spoke of the cohesion with their siblings with ASDs. 3.4. Adaptability of Participant Siblings. In family systems theory adaptability refers to the ability to change in terms of power structure, roles, and relationships in response to situ- ational and developmental stress [5]. The adaptability of our participant siblings was clearly identiﬁed in response to the ASD characteristics of their siblings and resulted in personal coping strategies and techniques they used to ameliorate their siblings’ challenging behaviors. We found that our par- ticipant siblings adapted in two distinct ways: (a) by using coping strategies and (b) by employing techniques that would assist their siblings with ASDs. 3.4.1. Coping Strategies of Participant Siblings. We found that our participant siblings adapted to having siblings with ASDs by either isolating themselves, which reﬂected a restriction of their personal boundaries, or broadening their personal boundaries by obtaining support from others and/or actively educating others about ASDs. Speciﬁcally, restricting their personal boundaries through engagement in isolated activ- ities gave our participants a break, a chance to remove them- selves from either disturbing situations with their siblings with ASDs or just to be by themselves. A number of our par- ticipants spoke of retreating to their own rooms. Cloe, age 7, said “Basically my space is up in my room reading. I’m on beginner chapter books.” Morris, also age 7, talked about drawing to make himself feel better, “Well, one time I made this picture called candy world and that helped.” And James, age 8, said “I just usually go up to my room and watch TV for a while.” None of our participant siblings reported restricting their boundaries excessively—only when necessary and only for a brief period of time. Another coping strategy identiﬁed by our participants was obtaining support from others. Breanna, age 11, sought support from an online support group, and said: Just talking about it, just talking about it makes me feel better. I don’t know, it just makes me feel better that somebody else has someone that shares these same kinds of experiences. Not exactly the same, but similar kinds of experi- ences. The anxiety our participants had about their siblings’ future also centered on the life skills their siblings with ASDs had not yet developed. Breanna had fears regarding her brother’s safety due to his lack of communication skills: Asia, age 14, identiﬁed support from “talking with [her] friends” and 15-year-old Mera described support she recei- ved from another sibling of a child with an ASD, “I actually have a friend who has a cousin who is autistic, so I’ve talked