Autism Research and Treatment their siblings’ diagnoses, social skill needs, medical and edu- cational needs, needs for visual supports, and interventions in place to support their siblings. They also demonstrated awareness of their siblings’ characteristics (physical and per- sonality), personal preferences, and auditory or olfactory hypersensitivity. Even the youngest of our interviewees rec- ognized their siblings’ physical, intellectual, and behavioral diﬀerences from typically developing children. These siblings seemed to be aware of others’ expectations for themsel- ves and their siblings, especially in the area of social skills. One participant speciﬁcally expressed pride in her brother’s improved social behavior. 3.2. Descriptions of the Sibling Subsystem. Much like typical sibling relationships, our participant siblings described their sibling subsystems or relationships with their siblings with ASDs with varying degrees of contentment and discontent. Some of the positive comments from our participants focu- sed on minimal sibling disagreements, engagement in mu- tual activities, and friendships between the siblings. Hanna, age 8, described the best part of the relationship with her sister: “The best part is that we don’t ﬁght that much and we don’t usually get in ﬁghts, and she’s just a really good sister.” Mera, age 15, had a similar response. Well, it’s really no diﬀerent than a normal brother and sister relationship, except we’ve never—there’s no disagreements. We never have disagreements, we never ﬁght, there’s really nothing, we can get along and there’s no prob- lem just me and him, it’s always fun, we always laugh. When he plays video games and stuﬀ I play with him sometimes and it’s, I don’t know, to me it’s no diﬀerent than a normal brother and sister relationship, because I’ve never had a little brother that does not have autism so I don’t really know how that is, but with my older bro- thers it’s just, it’s the same. Our participants also spoke of the activities they engaged in with their siblings with ASDs. These activities included playing video games, board games, swinging, and taking trips. Responding to the question, “What do you like about your brother?” 7-year-old Cloe described her thoughts about engaging in mutual activities: “Playing with him, going on trips with him, and doing things with him.” Cloe was also one of the participants who identiﬁed her brother as “her friend.” However, our participants also made negative comments regarding their relationships with their siblings with ASDs and these centered on their siblings’ challenging behaviors and the resulting embarrassment when inappropriate behav- ior occurred in public places. They identiﬁed challenging be- haviors as the most negative aspect of having a sibling with an ASD. Our participants spoke of physical aggression, “melt- downs,” and verbal arguments. When describing his verbal arguments with his brother, Morris, age 7, stated, “We say stuﬀ to each other that we kind of don’t want to.” Cloe des- cribed the physical aggression her brother directed at her: “He squeezes me, bites me, and he pushes me.” Some par- ticipants described their siblings’ physical aggression toward 5 items they owned. For example, 10-year-old Mitch stated, “It’s hard because he breaks my stuﬀ a lot and I have to hide it, which is kind of not very fun.” The negative aspects were simply stated, freely shared, and often immediately followed by a positive comment, which appeared to be an attempt to reduce the negativity of their previous comments. Another negative issue that arose was embarrassment when the siblings with ASDs did unusual things in public. Ruby, age 14, described an incident when this occurred: There are times that my brother can say certain things in public that are supposed to be a secret between me and him. He will say them to other people or he will do things like that, that are annoying. He will run up to people that I like, certain teachers and be really loud in certain places, like the library. It will get the attention of everybody on you. The resulting embarrassment was what seemed to bother the siblings the most when incidents occurred in public. Our participants compared their relationships with their siblings with ASDs to typical sibling relationships. They often spoke of incidents that were similar to those of typically deve- loping siblings. For example, RaeEllen, age 12, described a practical joke she played on her brother: Like one time he slept in until Noon, and it was Saturday. I told him he was late for school and his bus just left. He was like WHAT, OH NO! He got up and got in the shower and came back and got in the car. Then I went out and said, “Sorry, Pete, it is Saturday and lunch time.” Frequently when describing their sibling subsystems the participant siblings clearly identiﬁed their relationships with their siblings as typical. For example, 11-year-old Breanna said, “So he is just a typical brother pretty much, annoying, gets in my business, and tries to talk to my friends.” Our participants described their sibling subsystems with positive comments, negative comments, and emphasis on the typical nature of their sibling relationships. 3.3. Cohesion between Siblings. Cohesion in family systems theory refers to the emotional bonding between family mem- bers [5] and our participant siblings described cohesion with their siblings with ASDs as complex and varied. They expres- sed love, pride, a heightened sense of responsibility for their siblings with ASDs, and concerns for their siblings’ social ac- ceptance and safety. While a few participant siblings identi- ﬁed embarrassment over the behavior of their siblings with ASDs in public, many of them also identiﬁed pride in their siblings’ accomplishments. For example, Ruby spoke of her embarrassment when her brother told others her secrets. Yet, she also was proud of having a relationship that allowed shar- ing secrets, “If Pete wasn’t so unique I probably wouldn’t have a brother I could talk to. My brother, I can tell secrets to and he can just be a very cool role model. It is amazing what he does.” Our participants spoke with pride of the many accomplishments of their siblings with ASDs. These