Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Autism Stigma and Knowledge Questionnaire (ASK-Q)

Harrison, Ashley J.; Bradshaw, Laine; Naqvi, Nilofer C.; Paff, Madison L.; Campbell, Jonathan M.

doi:10.1007/s10803-017-3242-x

Cited by 77 publications

(90 citation statements)

References 49 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Overall, the instrument used in this study, specifically the ASD Beliefs Questionnaire (ABQ), consisted of two sections. The items in the developed instrument were adapted from questionnaires by Harrison et al [ 58 ] and Al-Sharbati et al [ 59 ], with their permission. The first section focused on the demographic information of the respondents (i.e., gender, age, marital status, education level, and teaching experience).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preschool Teachers’ Beliefs towards Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Yemen

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is perplexing that some preschool teachers not only advise parents who have children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to go to religious healers, but also attribute such neurological disorders to the curse of the “evil eye” or vaccines. Although it is now the twentieth century, this behavior simply reflects the concerns of over-protective teachers and the cultural misperceptions about the actual definition of ASD. In Yemen, the term “ASD”, with its wide range of symptoms, is still ambiguous among preschool teachers. Thus, in a rather insightful piece for the education community, this study has attempted to look beneath the surface of the beliefs (religious belief–social belief–personal belief) of Yemeni preschool teachers regarding ASD. Based on the data collected from 213 teachers (20–30\31–40-~≥40 age) in the Taiz district, this study found that misconceptions specific to autism spectrum disorder were strongly evidenced among teachers who taught preschoolers. Due to personal ignorance and growing superstitions, these teachers tend to believe the society’s perceptions of ASD, thus resulting in the ignorance of scientific views. However, the mass media can increase this group’s awareness of ASD by continually assessing the inaccurate views on ASD, and correcting them. And by influencing the teachers to take a more conceptual scientific approach in serving their special needs students, furthermore, by informing preschool teachers of children’s rights in normal life in the future through providing children with an optimal chance of development by early intervention.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preschool Teachers’ Beliefs towards Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Yemen

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…1 That is, the attitudes of nonautistic individuals in the social environment need to be considered and adjusted to better support autistic individuals, 2,3 rather than focusing on eliminating their autistic symptoms. While previous studies have examined nonautistic individuals' openness to, 4,5 stigmatization of, 6,7 and awareness of 6 autism, this study proposes autism acceptance as a new attitude construct to be studied and measured.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, the Openness Scale measures how much a person likes to be around an autistic peer or how much a person thinks an autistic peer is different from him/her. 5 Other researchers have examined stigma associated with autism, a construct likely to be inversely related to acceptance, using the Autism Stigma and Knowledge Questionnaire (ASK-Q) 7 or the Social Distance Scale. 6 These attitude scales have enabled research on factors that are potentially associated with attitudes toward autism such as previous contact experience, autism knowledge, awareness of neurodiversity framework, and various demographic characteristics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development and Pilot-Testing of the Autism Attitude Acceptance Scale: An Instrument Measuring Autism Acceptance

Kim

2020

Autism in Adulthood

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Although previous studies have measured attitudes about autism to understand ways to ameliorate stigmatized beliefs, nonautistic individuals' acceptance of autism is still not well understood. This study aimed to develop and pilot test the Autism Attitude Acceptance Scale (AAAS), a self-report instrument that measures nonautistic adults' autism acceptance based on the neurodiversity framework, and examine the associations between autism acceptance and purported variables (disability-related experience/awareness variables and demographic characteristics). Methods: The author piloted the AAAS with 122 nonautistic adults. Principal component analysis and reliability analysis were used to examine the factor structure and psychometric properties of the AAAS. The associations between the AAAS and autism knowledge, the quantity and quality of previous contact, neurodiversity awareness, and demographic variables were examined using Pearson's r correlations, t-tests, and analyses of variance. Results: The author constructed two subscales of the AAAS, General Acceptance (GA) and Attitudes toward Treating Autistic Behaviors (ATAB). The GA measures the acceptance of autism as a unique way of being, willingness to provide support to autistic individuals, and feeling comfortable while interacting with them. The ATAB measures how strongly a person believes that receiving treatments to reduce autistic symptoms will or will not benefit autistic individuals. The GA was associated with autism knowledge, quality and quantity of previous contact with autistic individuals, neurodiversity awareness, gender, ethnicity, and education level of participants. The ATAB was significantly associated with autism knowledge and quality and quantity of previous contact; the ATAB did not have any significant associations with neurodiversity awareness and demographic variables. Conclusions: The AAAS, which validly and reliably measures nonautistic individuals' autism acceptance, identified the subgroups with low autism acceptance. This study calls for further examination of the underlying mechanism of autism acceptance and neurodiversity framework to restructure nonautistic individuals' attitudes about autism.

show abstract

“…Research on stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness held by healthcare professionals such as nurses and psychiatrists found conflicting results on the association between stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness and demographic features such as healthcare professionals’ age (Chambers et al 2010 ; Hansson et al 2013 ; Högberg et al 2012 ; Kopera et al 2015 ; Mosaku and Wallymahmed 2016 ; Reavley et al 2014 ; Siqueira et al 2017 ; Smith and Cashwell 2010 ; Tay et al 2004 ; Vibha et al 2008 ; Winkler et al 2016 ) or work experience (Gras et al 2015 ; Mosaku and Wallymahmed 2016 ; Smith and Cashwell 2010 ). Although stigmatizing attitudes toward ASD are often implicitly imbedded in ASD knowledge questionnaires (Harrison et al 2017a ), we found no studies evaluating ASD stigma in healthcare professionals nor any literature on how stigma toward mental illness relates to stigma toward autism. Nor did we find any studies evaluating the level of stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness in physicians who screen for health problems and developmental issues in children in the general population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…We evaluated ASD knowledge with a self-developed questionnaire as we could not identify suitable questionnaires at the start of the study. During the course of this study, the Autism Stigma and Knowledge Questionnaire (ASK-Q) was developed for evaluating both ASD knowledge and stigma and has strong psychometric properties (Harrison et al 2019 ; Harrison et al 2017a ). While the CAMI is widely used to assess stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness in general, it is unknown how the CAMI relates to stigma toward autism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Insights into Autism Knowledge and Stigmatizing Attitudes Toward Mental Illness in Dutch Youth and Family Center Physicians

Hof

Berckelaer-Onnes

Deen

et al. 2020

Community Ment Health J

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Professionals' limited knowledge on mental health and their stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness can delay the diagnosis of autism. We evaluated the knowledge on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and stigmatizing attitudes in 93 physicians at Dutch Youth and Family Centers (YFC). These physicians screen for psychiatric symptoms in children. We show that their general ASD knowledge scored 7.1 (SD 1.2), but their specific ASD knowledge was only 5.7 (SD 1.7) (weighted means on 1-10 scale, 1 = least knowledge, 10 = most knowledge). Our physicians had positive attitudes toward mental illness (CAMI scores 2.18 (SD 0.33) to 2.22 (SD 0.40) on a 5-point Likert scale) but they had higher levels of stigmatizing attitudes than other Western healthcare professionals. Their levels were considerably lower than in non-Western professionals. We found no relations between ASD knowledge, stigmatizing attitudes and demographic variables. In conclusion, ASD knowledge and stigmatizing attitudes toward mental illness in Dutch YFC physicians require attention.

show abstract

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Autism Stigma and Knowledge Questionnaire (ASK-Q)

Cited by 77 publications

References 49 publications

Preschool Teachers’ Beliefs towards Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Yemen

Preschool Teachers’ Beliefs towards Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Yemen

The Development and Pilot-Testing of the Autism Attitude Acceptance Scale: An Instrument Measuring Autism Acceptance

Novel Insights into Autism Knowledge and Stigmatizing Attitudes Toward Mental Illness in Dutch Youth and Family Center Physicians

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About