Effects of an Educational Presentation About Autism on High School Students' Perceptions of Autistic Adults

Scheerer, Nichole E.; Boucher, Troy; Sasson, Noah J.; Iarocci, Grace

doi:10.1089/aut.2021.0046

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Despite the relative nascency of these interpretative frameworks, they have already inspired fruitful research programmes promoting inclusivity and reducing stigma and prejudice ( Sasson & Morrison, 2019 ; Scheerer et al, 2022 ) to ultimately improve social outcomes for autistic people by improving how non-autistic people approach interactions with autistic people (see Davis & Crompton, 2021 , for review). Bolis et al further argued that two-person experiments are key to understanding sensory processes and interpersonal coordination in autism.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autistic young people adaptively use gaze to facilitate joint attention during multi-gestural dyadic interactions

Caruana,

Nalepka,

Perez

et al. 2023

Autism

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Autistic people often experience difficulties navigating face-to-face social interactions. Historically, the empirical literature has characterised these difficulties as cognitive ‘deficits’ in social information processing. However, the empirical basis for such claims is lacking, with most studies failing to capture the complexity of social interactions, often distilling them into singular communicative modalities (e.g. gaze-based communication) that are rarely used in isolation in daily interactions. The current study examined how gaze was used in concert with communicative hand gestures during joint attention interactions. We employed an immersive virtual reality paradigm, where autistic ( n = 22) and non-autistic ( n = 22) young people completed a collaborative task with a non-autistic confederate. Integrated eye-, head- and hand-motion-tracking enabled dyads to communicate naturally with each other while offering objective measures of attention and behaviour. Autistic people in our sample were similarly, if not more, effective in responding to hand-cued joint attention bids compared with non-autistic people. Moreover, both autistic and non-autistic people demonstrated an ability to adaptively use gaze information to aid coordination. Our findings suggest that the intersecting fields of autism and social neuroscience research may have overstated the role of eye gaze during coordinated social interactions. Lay abstract Autistic people have been said to have ‘problems’ with joint attention, that is, looking where someone else is looking. Past studies of joint attention have used tasks that require autistic people to continuously look at and respond to eye-gaze cues. But joint attention can also be done using other social cues, like pointing. This study looked at whether autistic and non-autistic young people use another person’s eye gaze during joint attention in a task that did not require them to look at their partner’s face. In the task, each participant worked together with their partner to find a computer-generated object in virtual reality. Sometimes the participant had to help guide their partner to the object, and other times, they followed their partner’s lead. Participants were told to point to guide one another but were not told to use eye gaze. Both autistic and non-autistic participants often looked at their partner’s face during joint attention interactions and were faster to respond to their partner’s hand-pointing when the partner also looked at the object before pointing. This shows that autistic people can and do use information from another person’s eyes, even when they don’t have to. It is possible that, by not forcing autistic young people to look at their partner’s face and eyes, they were better able to gather information from their partner’s face when needed, without being overwhelmed. This shows how important it is to design tasks that provide autistic people with opportunities to show what they can do.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autistic young people adaptively use gaze to facilitate joint attention during multi-gestural dyadic interactions

Caruana,

Nalepka,

Perez

et al. 2023

Autism

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“…This review also has important implications for intervention, education, and diagnostic practices, as well as broader implications for how professionals and lay people conceptualize and understand autistic peoples’ experiences. First, education-based programs and interventions should be more widely implemented to reduce the identity-based stigma perpetuated by non-autistic people ( 135 ). These programs can address implicit bias, microaggressions, or outward discrimination in multiple settings and can assist with developing more equitable and sustainable disability policy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Applications of identity-based theories to understand the impact of stigma and camouflaging on mental health outcomes for autistic people

Rivera,

Bennetto

2023

Front. Psychiatry

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Autistic people have long been conceptualized from a deficit-based model of disability, but recent self-advocates and scholars have asserted the importance of recognizing autism as both a disability and an important part of a person’s social identity. The autistic identity is subject to specific stigma and stressors beyond everyday discrimination and prejudice, which can have many downstream implications on mental health and well-being. Prior research on camouflaging has explained both quantitatively and qualitatively how autistic people conform to norms and mask their autistic traits to better fit in with non-autistic societal standards. Given this paradigm shift in understanding autistic peoples’ lived experiences, researchers must also begin to reshape the theories guiding their work in order to improve diagnosis, intervention, and supports. This review examines the extant research on identity-related stigma and camouflaging and their subsequent impacts on mental health outcomes in autism. A model is proposed integrating identity-based theories—specifically the social model of disability, social identity theory, and minority stress model—to explain relationships across research areas and better explain the experiences of autistic people. We discuss how identity-based theories can be applied in autism research to better understand the impacts of stigma and camouflaging on autistic peoples’ lived experiences and reduce disparities in their mental health outcomes.

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“…Recently, several autism acceptance and antistigma trainings have begun to demonstrate the benefit of this approach. Trainings, particularly those co-designed and developed with autistic people (Gillespie-Lynch et al, 2022) and featuring the first-person narratives of autistic people (Jones et al, 2021), have been shown to increase autism knowledge, reduce stigma, and promote inclusion (Gillespie-Lynch et al, 2015;Jones et al, 2021;Obeid et al, 2015) among parents (Anthony et al, 2020), high school students (Scheerer et al, 2022), university students (Jones et al, 2021), and university faculty (Waisman et al, 2023). However, these trainings often do not address underlying implicit biases about autism (Dickter et al, 2021;Jones et al, 2021) and the sustainability of their effects are unclear.…”

Section: Develop a "Double Empathy" Perspective On Educating Autistic...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Recognizing and Resisting Ableist Language in Schools: Suggestions for School-based Speech Language Pathologists and Related Professionals

Bottema-Beutel,

Sasson,

McKinnon

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The language that professionals use to describe disabled students can reveal and perpetuate ableist assumptions. Professionals’ language choices can also challenge ableist attitudes to help create more inclusive, equitable learning environments. This article seeks to guide educators to identify ableist language, understand the ableist ideologies that such language reveals, and develop strategies to implement ways of communicating with and about disabled students that align with an anti-ableist stance. While dismantling ableism requires systemic change, individual professionals can use language in a way to resist ableism and to have a powerful effect upon their students’ educational experiences.

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Effects of an Educational Presentation About Autism on High School Students' Perceptions of Autistic Adults

Cited by 15 publications

References 44 publications

Autistic young people adaptively use gaze to facilitate joint attention during multi-gestural dyadic interactions

Autistic young people adaptively use gaze to facilitate joint attention during multi-gestural dyadic interactions

Applications of identity-based theories to understand the impact of stigma and camouflaging on mental health outcomes for autistic people

Recognizing and Resisting Ableist Language in Schools: Suggestions for School-based Speech Language Pathologists and Related Professionals

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