Research on Autism Strengths, Social Identity & Wellbeing

[c.chow]

Hi all,
I'm looking for autistic people aged 16-30 to complete a survey for my research into autism strengths, social identity and wellbeing. I've noticed how much focus there has been on the difficulties associated with autism, and less about the strengths which I'd like to explore about more. We hope to use the findings to better understand how we can support autistic people around stigma and discrimination and develop a balanced view of autism. I've worked with members of the autism community (including researchers) to design this study, which is taking a particular focus on young adults’ experiences. I think this is an important and interesting topic – hopefully it captures others interest and grows as a field!

Below is the link to the anonymous survey involving some questionnaires and a brief video about different features of autism. It should take roughly 20-30 minutes to complete in total.

There is also an optional prize draw for £50 voucher!

If you’d like to read more about the study or participate, please click on this link: https://bathpsychology.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1BJyEcydvj270uq

Please feel free to get in touch directly if you have any questions/thoughts about the study or this area of research generally. Always happy to chat further.

Thanks so much for your attention!
Claudia

 

[Tom]

Hi, I'm out of your age group, but like the direction of your study. You might consider hitting the older age group at some point as they have had more time/opportunity to experiment with strategies. Conversely we generally were undiagnosed for a good portion of our lives as ASD-1 was not widely recognized in our younger days. So we were dealing with something without a name or cause and that may affect one's approach to problems/issues.

Also be aware that a large percentatge of people on the spectrum are not formally diagnosed (for multiple reasons) and are only self diagnosed.

 

[Darkkin]

A majority of forum members are out of the age demographic. Classic age discrimination and it skews a huge contingent of the autistic population because a huge percentage of autistics are late diagnosed (age 15 or older)...(ASD2 and ASD3) are often the types most commonly diagnosed early because the deficits are very overt, whereas ASD1 (a majority female) pass unseen until adolescence or early adulthood because of basic masking skills.

Those with ASD2 and ASD3 often require life long assistance, while many ASD1s seem to fail at life because they aren't trying hard enough. It never occurs to others that ASD1 might be a contributing factor.

If you were born a 20th Century (prior to 1992) autistic you must know nothing of autism in the 21st Century...

The way these 'surveys' collect data is completely backward. Want to know about living and identifying as an autistic, stop trying to force us through a series of NT questions and actually interview autistics in the community. Look for the patterns and commonalities in what they articulate. Start a discussion thread in a forum and give autistics a chance to discuss their thoughts and insights rather than: True or False or ABC.

That survey's list of requirements treats all ASDers as if they function at a subpar level, minimizing skill sets and social functionality. This is what stereotyping and stigmata look like. Gross assumptions about the huge bandwidth of the spectrum condensed to the bands only NTs can see. Interview members of the autistic community and THEN consolidate archetypes and commonalities. Autism is not a standardized survey, it is a diverse, living spectrum.

 

[c.chow]

Hi, I'm out of your age group, but like the direction of your study. You might consider hitting the older age group at some point as they have had more time/opportunity to experiment with strategies. Conversely we generally were undiagnosed for a good portion of our lives as ASD-1 was not widely recognized in our younger days. So we were dealing with something without a name or cause and that may affect one's approach to problems/issues.

Also be aware that a large percentatge of people on the spectrum are not formally diagnosed (for multiple reasons) and are only self diagnosed.

Hi Tom, thanks for your message. Yes I absolutely agree, people outside of this age bracket would have a wealth of insight that would be so valuable to tap into too, so is something to consider for a future project hopefully. It was just that unfortunately because of the project limits (resources/time) we had to place some specific criteria to make it feasible. We hope this will nonetheless generate some curiosity and knowledge that can help make this a growing area of research...