Do labels matter? The effect of specific and generic labels on university students’ openness towards autistic peers

Abstract

Background: The number of autistic students enroling into universities and completing a higher education qualification is increasing. They would have to decide whether to disclose their diagnosis in order to receive appropriate and adequate support or not to share their diagnosis due to possible stigmatisation faced by them. This study examined the effect of labels (‘Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)’ or ‘Special Needs’ [SN]) used on university students’ openness towards autistic peers. Method: 121 university students (43 males, 78 females; age range = 18–26) were randomly assigned to read one of three conditions with student characters identified as (1) having ASD or (2) SN; or (3) not identified with any label. They rated their openness towards the featured student and completed an ASD knowledge survey. Result: Participants reported a greater level of openness toward vignettes characters with the ASD label and SN label as compared to vignettes characters with no label (with a large effect size). However, openness towards ASD and SN labels were not different. Knowledge of ASD accounted for a small but significant variance (3.3 %) of how university students rated the behaviours in the vignettes. Conclusion: We proposed that the present findings may serve as an encouragement to autistic individuals in local universities to consider disclosing their ASD diagnosis to the people around them and at the same time, underscore the importance of greater public education on ASD, to create a more supportive environment for autistic individuals to thrive in