Thread by @cjcrompton

Tea, blanket, and ready for the #INSAR2021 session on Global Insights on Understanding and Reducing Autism Stigma panel with @DrEilidh, @JacdenHouting, @DrMBotha, @DesiRJones & So Yoon Kim. I will do my best to live tweet this session!

(Pls excuse typos and/or lack of clarity, I will do my best!) #INSAR2021

We start with So Yoon Kim on Autism stigma in South Korea and the US.

Stigma negatively affects autistic people: effects include social exclusion, barriers to employment, and health.

#INSAR2021

Autism stigma is shaped by societal norms and varies across cultures.

Greater stigma in collectivistic cultures compared to individualistic.

Korea is racially, ethnically, and culturally homogeneous. Might this make autism stigma higher?

#INSAR2021

So Yoon conducted a cross cultural comparison of autism stigma in S. Korea and the US. This research explored explore whether stigma, autism knowledge & beliefs about autism were different between the two, and to explore which variables (age, gender, education etc) affect stigma

Autism stigma was measured using @kgillyn social distancing task.

S. Koreans had + autism stigma, - autism knowledge, and thought that autism could harm productivity

Americans more viewed autism as hereditary and higher concerns about marrigability

#INSAR2021

Findings highlight fostering positive and frequent contact and increasing knowledge in the US and S.Korea.

An emphasis on social norms may contribute to stigma in S.Korea, so interventions should focus on explaining diverse ways of being (i.e neurodiversity) to reduce stigma.

An excellent talk, So Yoon!👏

Now we're on to @DrEilidh from @StirAutism on investigating implicit and explicit attitudes of primary school educators in Scotland

#INSAR2021

. @DrEilidh explains that Scotland has devolved powers over education. There is a presumption of mainstreaming, and 84% of autistic pupils are in mainstream schools. That's 20,000 pupils, approx 3% of the school population

#INSAR2021.

While the aim of policy is for inclusion, 34% of parents of autistic pupils said their child had been unlawfully excluded.

Scottish Government acknowledges that they can do better on inclusion of autistic pupils at school, and are changing teacher training #INSAR2021

Research has shown that teacher training includes 1 hour lecture about autism in a 4 year course.

Research has also found teachers in Scotland report a lack of knowledge about autism and don't know how to support autistic pupils. This has been noted as a substantial barrier.

. @DrEilidh's study looks at understanding the attitudes of primary teachers.

Explicit attitudes are self-reported and subject to social desirabilty

Implicit attitudes are subconscious, may more accurately reflect attitudes as not subject to social desirability. #INSAR2021

. @DrEilidh's research uses an implicit attitudes association task. Response times reflect implicit associations. Faster response times = closer association.

#INSAR2021

Participants also completed a vignette measure of openess of interacting with autistic people (children specifically), a cognitive measure of thoughts and beliefs about autistic children, @kgillyn measure of autism knowledge and level of contact with autistic people #INSAR2021

Explicit attitudes showed

Openness of interacting = high!
Cognitive attitude = high!
Autism knowledge = good!

However, implicit attitudes were neutral/positive

When looking at correlations...

greater knowledge = more positive attitudes

years of experience + age = more negative attitudes

older age = less accurate knowledge.

Overall, Scottish primary teachers had positive implicit and explicit attitudes towards autism. A minority had negative implicit attitudes with positive explicit attitudes, suggesting some educators may benefit from more training about autism.

Is this due to Scotland's inclusive policies? We can't tell from this data & there are certainly currently issues in some practice - e.g. high levels of unlawful exclusion. More work needed - including in secondary schools.

Thanks @DrEilidh! Preprint: psyarxiv.com/rh9d6/

Now we're on to @DrMBotha (also from @StirAutism) looking at autistic community connectedness, stigma, and identity.

Belongingness is an innate human need, related to higher wellbeing and quality of life. Connectedness offers positive self-comparison.

However, minority communities may be excluded because they are stigmatised for example, LGBTQ+ people may be excluded from spaces for not meeting heteronormative norms. However they may have access to a community of likeminded LGBTQ+ people who understand their experience.

Autism is associated with a lack of social motivation - so the concept of an "autistic community" might be confusing to some (NTs!) However there is of course evidence of a thriving autistic community with a rich history (shout out to @drstevenkapp's recent book!)

Aw woop! A shout out to our work showing autistic-autistic communication is smoother that autistic-nonautistic communication & showing autistic people experience relatively higher rapport with other autistic people.

(ahem, here's the papers, if you're interested! journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…

shout out to the team including @SueReviews and @axbey)

An n=20 qualitative interview study found that autistic community connectedness gave a sense of belongingness, social connectedness, and political connectedness. Here's a link to a preprint! @DrMBotha #INSAR2021

osf.io/atd69

Autistic participants noted autistic-autistic friendships as being their first friendships, an instant sense of home. "They're not broken neurotypicals, they're an average autistics" Participants the importance of connecting on their own terms, in a space that is accessible...

...(spaces by and for autistic people facilitate autistic friendships in a way that other spaces might not.), and giving life meaning by trying to fight for a better world, particularly through activisim re-directing the autism research agenda towards more QoL type research.

In summary, autistic people experience connectedness and belonging, and there is a unique rapport with autistic people feel with other autistic people.

Future work might look quantitatively at how community belonging can act as a buffer to minority stress.

Excellent stuff, @DrMBotha! Now time for @DesiRJones on autism acceptance training on explicit and implicit biases towards autism in non-autistic adults.

So many organisations have promoted autism acceptance, but stigma persists.

Non-autistic people make negative judgements about autistic them, even after a few seconds (see this @Noahsasson if somehow you haven't already!)

nature.com/articles/srep4…

Non-autistic adults also have a reluctance to interact with autistic adults (if you're interested, see @kmdebrabander, @DesiRJones et al paper)

liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.10…

What can improve non-autistic attitude towards autism? 3 possibilities

1) Disclosure of diagnosis? It's a complicated picture. It may help, it may not. Is it ethical to expect autistic people to share private information so they can be treated with respect? Absolutely not.

2) Familiarity w/ autism? Possibly! Increased familiarity w/ autistic people can improve attitudes. Promising

3) Increased knowledge of autism? Yes - lower stigma, but people are inaccurate at guessing their own knowledge. And we need to make sure the knowledge is accurate!

Non-autistic people who completed autism acceptance training rated autistic people more attractive + intelligent, & were more open to hanging out autistic people

This research was recently published in @journalautism - you can read more here journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

Future research may look at whether these positive effects persist over time, how this affects how non-autistic people interact with autistic people in the "real world", and whether more in depth training helps with implicit bias improvement.
#INSAR2021

Such great stuff @DesiRJones. Thank you :)

Now we're with @JacdenHouting (good early morning to you!)

Jac notes this racial, cultural and neurodiverse panel of young women & non-binary people - and celebrates the high quality and important stigma research from this group.

@JacdenHouting gives us a fantastic overview of this very data-rich session research, pulling together the key themes with wonderful clarity. #INSAR2021

Jac asks some great questions:

1) How do these findings apply to intersectional groups in the autistic community? ...

...Do e.g. homophobia and racism compound stigma?

2) What about internalised stigma? Autistic ppl might struggle to create & maintain a positive identity. How can we help autistic people overcome internalised stigma?

3) How can we address stigma at systemic + societal levels?

Now we're on to the Q&A!

@DrMBotha on how to address internalise stigma.

If stigma didn't exist, we wouldn't have internalised stigma. How we talk about autism matters. #INSAR2021

. @DrMBotha: We have a responsibility as researchers - that starts with the language we use.

Researchers have a responsibility to use appropriate language (a nod to @KristenBott, @drstevenkapp, @Noahsasson and @BN_Hand's fantastic paper)

liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.10…

#INSAR2021

How does autism stigma interact with stigma about intellectual disability? @DrEilidh notes that stigma research is in relatively early days and more work is needed to explore this. @DrMBotha & @DesiRJones note how important it is to link with existing disability literature

On how to reduce negative implicit bias, @DesiRJones draws from critical race theory - intergroup contact is key to reduce bias. Interact with people who aren't in your in-group in a setting without a power differential (i.e. *not* just as researcher-participants.)...

...This can break down negative views, stereotypes, and implicit biases. @DrMBotha notes the importance of changing the messaging about what it means to be autistic & neurodivergent - which needs systemic change (and more research!)

And we're done! THANK YOU so much to @DrEilidh, @JacdenHouting, @DrMBotha, @DesiRJones
& So Yoon Kim for sharing your research, and thank you to #INSAR2021 for hosting this excellent panel.

(Omg i'm so hungry and have such tired computer eyes. Dinner time! I'm out!)