University Students' Notion of Autism Spectrum Conditions: A Cross-Cultural Study.
Marieke de Vries, Sabrina Cader, Lucy Colleer and 4 others
PMID 31901119WHAT IT FOUND
UK-campus students reported more knowledge, contact and acceptance of autism than Malaysia-campus students.
Malaysia-campus students more often linked autism to upbringing; UK-campus students more often linked it to diet. These are student attitudes, not clinical evidence.
Key findings
01UK-campus students scored 7.05 out of 12 on knowledge of autism features and 35.86 out of 40 on acceptance, compared with 5.87 and 33.33 for Malaysia-campus students.
02Students at the two campuses differed on two belief factor scores: Malaysia-campus students scored 0.31 on upbringing beliefs versus -0.37 for UK-campus students, and UK-campus students scored 1.51 on food beliefs versus -0.13 for Malaysia-campus students.
03Overall, 45.8% of UK-campus students and 36.9% of Malaysia-campus students left their contact details, not significantly different; excluding psychology students, 42.7% of UK-campus students versus 28.3% of Malaysia-campus students was significant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The participants were university students, not patients, families or therapists, so the study does not report clinical outcomes or treatment effects. The authors say the sample is not representative of the general population because it includes highly educated students from urban campuses. The study did not assign an intervention, so it cannot show that knowledge or contact caused acceptance. The willingness-to-interact result changed when psychology students were excluded, so the finding is sensitive to who is counted. The authors say their cultural explanations are not directly tested.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that Malaysia-campus students are less willing to interact with autistic people. Overall willingness was not significantly different; a difference appeared only when psychology students were removed from the analysis.