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My thesis was published in @journalautism today! https://tinyurl.com/y3krtdog
We wanted to see if an intervention targeting autism knowledge and familiarity in non-autistic (NA) adults could reduce implicit and explicit biases towards autism. 1/15
Many interventions target autistic people, teaching them to mask their autistic traits. This places the burden of social exclusion on autistic folks, when we should really be challenging the attitudes that lead NA people to stigmatize autistic behaviors. 2/15
So, how do we decrease stigma? Research on race suggests that improving knowledge and familiarity with marginalized groups can help to reduce racial biases. 3/15
This effect may extend to autism; people with greater autism knowledge and familiarity show more inclusive attitudes towards autism, and improvements in autism knowledge are associated with decreased stigma. 4/15
For our study, we wanted to see how an autism-specific training would compare to a more general mental health focused training, as well as a control condition that involved no training. 5/15
The autism training video contained firsthand accounts from autistic people and factual information about autism. The mental health training featured similar accounts of mental health conditions, but did not mention autism. Both videos were ~30 min long and narrated. 6/15
NA adults were randomly assigned to watch one of the two videos, or to complete a control condition with no video. 7/15
Next, they viewed videos of real autistic people and rated their first impressions of each person, and completed questionnaires about their knowledge and perceptions of autism. 8/15
Finally, participants completed an implicit association test (IAT) designed to measure how strongly they associated autism diagnostic labels with pleasant or unpleasant personal attributes. 9/15
We found that the autism training was associated with more accurate autism knowledge, increased desire to interact with autistic people, and better perceptions of autistic abilities compared to the mental health training and control conditions. 10/15
However, implicit biases towards autism persisted regardless of training, with NA people associating autism labels with negative attributes. 11/15
TL;DR? Despite associating autism with negative attributes, NA people who completed the autism training showed more favorable and inclusive attitudes towards autistic people. 12/15
We don't know if these effects will translate to real world benefits for autistic people, or if a longer, more in depth training would offer additional benefits. 13/15
However, I'm excited about these findings, which offer hope for a way to promote inclusive attitudes towards autism without forcing autistic people to change who they are. 14/15
Thank you so much to my advisor @NoahSasson and my labmate @kmdebrabander for all of your help and support on this. If you can't access the article, please feel free to email or DM me for a copy! 15/15
