Victimization and Perpetration Experiences of Adults With Autism

Weiss, Jonathan A.; Fardella, Michelle A.

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00203

Cited by 114 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…The association between autism and traits which are gendered in society, including violence and aggression are carried forward to their extreme (Krahn and Fenton 2012). Yet, both objective and subjective measures of perpetration of crime are equal between autistic and non-autistic individuals (Im 2016;Weiss and Fardella 2018). By creating the idea of the "extreme male brain", researchers not only further linked autism with an incapacity for empathy, but also reinforced an idea that men cannot empathize to the degree that women can.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

"Autism is me": an investigation of how autistic individuals make sense of autism and stigma

Botha

Dibb

Frost

2020

Disability & Society

218

135

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There are many different perspectives for understanding autism. These perspectives may each convey different levels of stigma for autistic individuals. This qualitative study aimed to understand how autistic individuals make sense of their own autism and experience the stigma attached to autism. The study used critical grounded theory tools. Participants (N ¼ 20) discussed autism as central to their identity, and integral to who they are. While participants thought of autism as value neutral, they expressed how society confers negative meanings onto autism, and thus, them. The findings also indicate that different understandings of autism confer different levels of stigma. Participants expressed constant exposure to stigma and managed this stigma in different ways. Such methods included reframing to more positive understandings of autism, the reclamation of language, and using concealment and disclosure strategically. The implications of these findings are discussed further in the article.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

"Autism is me": an investigation of how autistic individuals make sense of autism and stigma

Botha

Dibb

Frost

2020

Disability & Society

218

135

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These mixed findings indicate further investigation of metacognitive monitoring and control in autism is warranted, specifically for the reporting of episodic events (where autistic difficulties are often noted), especially given the often important implications of such reports for both every day and high stakes real‐life situations (e.g., providing eyewitness testimony). Autistic individuals are more likely to have interactions with police as victims/witnesses 1 and may, therefore, be required to provide a detailed account of an incident [e.g., Brown‐Lavoie, Viecili, & Weiss, 2014; Weiss & Fardella, 2018]. However, evidence suggests that, compared with TD individuals, autistic witnesses often provide testimony that is less accurate and/or less complete [see Maras, 2020; Maras & Bowler, 2014].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metacognitive Monitoring and Control of Eyewitness Memory Reports in Autism

2020

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Providing eyewitness testimony involves monitoring one's memory to provide a detailed and accurate account: reporting details likely to be accurate and withholding potentially inaccurate details. Autistic individuals reportedly experience difficulties in both retrieving episodic memories and monitoring their accuracy, which has important implications for eyewitness testimony. Thirty autistic and 33 IQ-matched typically developing (TD) participants viewed a video of a mock bank robbery followed by three phases of questions (with judgments of confidence). In Phase 1, participants freely generated the granularity of their responses (i.e., fineor coarse-grained). In Phase 2, participants answered the same questions but provided both a fineand a coarse-grained answer. In Phase 3, participants were instructed to maximize accuracy over informativeness by selecting one of their Phase 2 answers as their final answer. They either received the questions socially (from the experimenter) or answered them online. There were no group differences in accuracy or metacognitive monitoring, with both autistic and TD witnesses demonstrating: (a) a strong preference for reporting fine-grained details at the expense of accuracy; (b) improved though still suboptimal grain size reporting when instructed to maximize accuracy over informativeness; (c) effective accuracy monitoring; and (d) higher overall accuracy when questions were delivered socially. There was, however, a subtle difference in metacognitive control, with autistic witnesses performing more poorly than TD witnesses when questions were delivered socially, but not when they were delivered online. These findings contrast with evidence suggesting that autism is marked by impairments in episodic memory and metacognitive monitoring and control.

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“…Core characteristics of ASD, such as difficulty in gauging social interactions and understanding the thoughts and intentions of others, have been linked to an increased risk of coming into contact with police as a victim/witness 1 or suspect (e.g. Brown-Lavoie et al, 2014 ; Chaplin & Mukhopadhyay, 2018 ; Heeramun et al, 2017 ; Lindblad & Lainpelto, 2011 ; Rava et al, 2017 ; Tint et al, 2017 , 2019 ; Weiss & Fardella, 2018 ). However, knowledge is currently limited regarding how best to interview autistic individuals in order to elicit the most complete and accurate information about what they have experienced.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Witness-Aimed First Account (WAFA): A new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses and victims

Maras

Dando

Stephenson

et al. 2020

Autism

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Autistic people experience social communication difficulties alongside specific memory difficulties than impact their ability to recall episodic events. Police interviewing techniques do not take account of these differences, and so are often ineffective. Here we introduce a novel Witness-Aimed First Account interview technique, designed to better support autistic witnesses by diminishing socio-cognitive and executive demands through encouraging participants to generate and direct their own discrete, parameter-bound event topics, before freely recalling information within each parameter-bound topic. Since witnessed events are rarely cohesive stories with a logical chain of events, we also explored witnesses’ recall when the narrative structure of the to-be-remembered event was lost. Thirty-three autistic and 30 typically developing participants were interviewed about their memory for two videos depicting criminal events. Clip segments of one video were ‘scrambled’, disrupting the event’s narrative structure; the other video was watched intact. Although both autistic and typically developing witnesses recalled fewer details with less accuracy from the scrambled video, Witness-Aimed First Account interviews resulted in more detailed and accurate recall from autistic and typically developing witnesses, for both scrambled and unscrambled videos. The Witness-Aimed First Account technique may be a useful tool to improve autistic and typically developing witnesses’ accounts within a legally appropriate, non-leading framework. Lay abstract Autistic people may be more likely to be interviewed by police as a victim/witness, yet they experience social communication difficulties alongside specific memory difficulties that can impact their ability to recall information from memory. Police interviewing techniques do not take account of these differences, and so are often ineffective. We developed a new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses, referred to a Witness-Aimed First Account, which was designed to better support differences in the way that autistic witnesses process information in memory. The Witness-Aimed First Account technique encourages witnesses to first segment the witnessed event into discrete, parameter-bound event topics, which are then displayed on post-it notes while the witness goes onto freely recall as much information as they can from within each parameter-bound topic in turn. Since witnessed events are rarely cohesive stories with a logical chain of events, we also explored autistic and non-autistic witnesses’ recall when the events were witnessed in a random (nonsensical) order. Thirty-three autistic and 30 typically developing participants were interviewed about their memory for two videos depicting criminal events. Clip segments of one video were ‘scrambled’, disrupting the event’s narrative structure; the other video was watched intact. Although both autistic and non-autistic witnesses recalled fewer details with less accuracy from the scrambled video, Witness-Aimed First Account interviews resulted in more detailed and accurate recall from both autistic and non-autistic witnesses, for both scrambled and unscrambled videos. The Witness-Aimed First Account technique may be a useful tool to improve witnesses’ accounts within a legally appropriate, non-leading framework.

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Victimization and Perpetration Experiences of Adults With Autism

Cited by 114 publications

References 59 publications

"Autism is me": an investigation of how autistic individuals make sense of autism and stigma

"Autism is me": an investigation of how autistic individuals make sense of autism and stigma

Metacognitive Monitoring and Control of Eyewitness Memory Reports in Autism

The Witness-Aimed First Account (WAFA): A new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses and victims

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