College Students Recognize Characteristics of Autism, but Struggle to Differentiate Between Characteristics of Autism and Other Disabilities.
Camilla M McMahon
PMID 39546172WHAT IT FOUND
College students recognized autism traits as diagnostic more accurately than they rejected ADHD, anxiety and learning-disability traits.
When they mislabeled those traits as autism, they were often more confident, not less.
Key findings
01Students were significantly better at identifying autism characteristics as diagnostic (mean accuracy 0.85, higher means more correct) than at rejecting other-disability characteristics as not diagnostic (mean accuracy 0.58).
02For autism characteristics, confidence rose with accuracy; for ADHD and anxiety characteristics, confidence rose when answers were wrong.
03The least accurate items were difficulty sustaining attention, muscle tension from anxiety and slow word reading, often misidentified as autism.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was 283 undergraduate psychology students, not clinicians, patients or the general public, and it was drawn from an initial 426 students after exclusions. Participants completed the autism knowledge items after reading autism vignettes in a larger study, which may have made their responses more accurate than they would be without that exposure. The items used DSM-5 language, some of it technical, so difficulty may reflect jargon rather than autism knowledge. The study measured knowledge and confidence, not diagnosis, behaviour or clinical outcomes, so it does not show how therapists should assess or treat autism. DSM-5-TR criteria are imperfect and contested in the autism community, and the paper notes they change over time.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the high accuracy for autism traits as general autism expertise. Participants often mislabeled ADHD, anxiety and learning-disability traits as autism, and for those mistakes they were often more confident than when they were right.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →