Publication Date
2024
Document Type
Book
Description
Autistic college students may be negatively impacted by peer stigma due to a lack of knowledge and limited understanding of Autism (Kuzminski et al., 2019). Research on autism stigma has revealed that non-autistic peers of all ages make ‘thin-slice judgments’ about autistic individuals resulting in reduced intentions to pursue social interaction (Sasson et al., 2017). Improving understanding of how non-autistic students perceive their autistic peers may be useful to inform future efforts to educate non-autistic students and reduce stigma. The aim of this study was to assess non-autistic students’ perception of their autistic peers by using NVivo software to analyze word associations used to describe autism. A total of 822 words were collected from participants. The most used adjectives to describe autism were smart (N=76), awkward (N=28), and sensitive (N=27). The results indicate that common stereotypes associated with autism concern primarily social and cognitive abilities.
Files
Download Full Text (647 KB)
Recommended Citation
Cino, Olivia and Aragon-Guevara, Diego, "College Students’ Perception of Autistic Adults Using Word Association Frequency Analyses" (2024). Research Days Posters 2024. 1.
https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2024/1