Background: School is an important context for identity development across childhood and adolescence. These formative experiences impact adulthood. Minimal research has examined first-person autistic perspectives of how school experiences shape autistic identity as well as other intersecting identities. In this study, we examined the school messages that autistic individuals received and how individuals engaged with these external messages to formulate their identities.
Methods: Ten U.S.-based autistic adolescents and adults ages 15-35 participated in qualitative interviews about their elementary through secondary school experiences, interactions with teachers and peers, and how these shaped their identities. Two interviewees also engaged in three follow-up interviews each for member checking and further data gathering. Using a critical constructivist approach informed by grounded theory, we coded interviews inductively. We ensured the trustworthiness of data through peer debriefing, reflexive journaling, memoing, and member checking.
Results: In the school context, autistic students received stigmatizing messages from teachers and peers regarding their autism. These messages varied in relation to students' other identities, including race and gender. Participants felt that, following autism disclosure, teachers viewed them narrowly through an autism lens. Participants actively resisted these negative messages from teachers and peers by reclaiming their autistic identity. They reframed and redefined their autistic identity, embraced their autism-related strengths, and actively made choices about how, when, and to whom to disclose their autism. Decisions around autism disclosure intersected with decisions to emphasize other identities such as race or mental health, especially when these identities were more visible or more acceptable to others.
Conclusions: The school context conveyed powerful, stigmatizing messages around autism. In response, autistic students actively reclaimed and shaped their identities to prioritize a positive, empowered sense of self. Findings show a need for educators to model positive perceptions of autism, build an inclusive school community, and advocate for autistic representation in schools to facilitate autism-affirming messages.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/aut.2021.0087 | DOI Listing |
There are more males than females with autism. One of the reasons can be that we do not understand autistic females well. Some research in Western cultures has begun to document the lived experience of autistic females, but no such studies are conducted with Chinese autistic females.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Psychiatry
December 2024
Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Background: Autism is associated with alterations of social communication, such as during face-to-face interactions. This study aimed to probe face processing in autistics with normal IQ utilizing magnetoencephalography to examine event-related fields within the fusiform gyrus during face perception.
Methods: A case-control cohort of 22 individuals diagnosed with autism and 20 age-matched controls (all male, age 29.
J Autism Dev Disord
December 2024
Department of Education, ICT and Learning, Østfold University College, B R A Veien 4, Halden, Norway.
J Autism Dev Disord
December 2024
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, China.
The relationship between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and screen time (ST) has been extensively studied; but the evidence remains inconsistent, and a comprehensive quantitative synthesis of this association is lacking. This study aims to provide a robust quantitative assessment of the relationship between ASD and ST by consolidating and analyzing available evidence to offer a more precise understanding of this complex association. This systematic review followed PRISMA 2020 statement, and applied a quality assessment tool for quantitative studies to identity best available evidence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Autism Dev Disord
November 2024
Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.
Absract: PURPOSE: The several prior studies assessing gender identity in young autistic individuals mostly included a mix of child and adolescent participants, heavily relied on parent-reported measures, and yielded mixed findings. A single parent-reported item from the Child Behavior Checklist assessing "wish to be of the opposite sex" was employed in most of these studies. Only one prior study focused specifically on children, but that study employed parent-reported measures.
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