College Student Perceptions of Peers with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Much of the emphasis on research regarding Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been directed toward childhood, with much less attention paid to ASD order among adults. In particular, very little research has been done on college students with ASD making the transition to living away from home. Furthermore, little research has been done on the social skills of these students and the relationships with their peers. Past research has shown that labels of mental illness creates more stigma towards those with mental illness. The present study is a between subject design, which gave college students (n=129) an identical vignette that describes behaviors characteristic of a student with an ASD diagnosis either with the label of ASD or without. Participants then answered questions regarding their attitudes of the described student on a Likert scale of one to five with 1 being “strongly disagree” and 5 being “strongly agree”. On average students reported more positive perceptions of individuals when they perceived the unique behaviors described in the vignette to be due to ASD, compared to students who did not attribute the unique behaviors to ASD (t(1, 125)=-2.026, p< .05). These results suggest that having a known reason to explain otherwise unusual or odd social behaviors, such as ASD, was associated with more positive perceptions compared to conditions in which participants had no such explanation. This suggests that knowing a person has a diagnosis of ASD may elicit more empathy from other student peers in a social situation for students transitioning to college.