Autism Observation Paper

Method
Participants
The participants interviewed for this research study were adults who either work with those who have autism or have a child with autism. Participants interviewed were selected by knowledge of people who have experience with autism. All of the participants were students currently attending UCCS or the researcher has had past experience with. All interviews were confidential and contained no identifying information. The participants of the interviews were 3 females and 2 males. Race demographics included 100% being white. All participants of the interviews were over the age of eighteen.
Instrumentation
Prior to each interview, a written consent form (see Appendix E) explaining the voluntariness and confidentiality of the
interview was discussed, signed, and dated by participants. The consent form served to show the student’s acknowledgement and willingness to participate in the study. The consent form was a modified version based on a template from the UCCS website, and included a brief introduction about participating in research, an overview of the study, procedures, risks and benefits, and confidentiality. The consent form included an introduction, study overview, procedure, risks and discomforts, and confidentiality. A copy of the consent form was also proved to all participants.
The interview consisted of four open-ended questions and probes (see Appendix A and B) specifically designed to gain information on what people think of those who have autism, stereotypes of autism, experience with those who have autism, the knowledge those know of what autism is.
Interview notes were transcribed onto a coding table (see Appendix F) for analysis and to identify common themes among collected data. Four themes were identified, and within each theme recurring responses were established. Each interview was cross-referenced with recurring responses. Repeating response patterns were determined and evaluated for
similarity.
Procedures
At the beginning of February, autism was selected as a topic for research. Ten scholarly reviewed journal articles were selected from the Ebscohost data base, analyzed and summarized (later an additional four articles were selected.) Using the original ten scholarly articles, an annotated bibliography was created. After annotation, each article was analyzed for key points. Utilizing the key points, a literature review was drafted, including all sources. Many research questions were developed from the literature review, however one question was selected because of feasibility – “how are those who have autism perceived?” A research proposal was drafted and approved, Institutional Review Board (IRB) paperword was submitted, and Citi-training was completed to ensure ethical research (see Appendix D and E).
Research interview questions were developed based on the literature review, went through multiple drafts, and four open-ended questions, to be asked in a specific order, received approval. After approval, interview questions were piloted on sociology and criminal justice students. Participants were informed research involved collecting information about experience with autism, knowledge of what autism is, and what stereotypes of autism are. Participants were selected based on availability and a general understanding of what autism is. Individuals agreeing to participate were briefed about confidentiality and the voluntary nature of the interview, which included being able to stop at any point. Individuals participating in the interview were selected based on availabilty and comfortability. If individuals agreed to be interviewed, a consent form was distributed, whereupon the form was read, verbally explained, and signed by the interviewee. The interview was designed to build rapport and elicit information with a conversational tone. Brief notes were written manually by the researcher during the interview, and immediately afterward the researcher added more detailed comments about the interview. Data collected from the interviews was transcribed onto a coding table (see Appendix F) and analyzed for repeating themes. Common themes were identified and evaluated for relevance to autism. Responses were recorded by handwriting the responses on a blank sheet of notebook paper. Probes were used to elaborate on the interviewees answers if the interviewees did not provide enough information.
Results
After completing five interviews, four major themes were revealed when the results were put into coding tables. These four major themes were spectrum (socially), communication, difficulty, and cruel/ignorance/assumption. Furthermore, in some of the interviews, the interviewees were interested in the experience encountered with someone who has autism.
Social Spectrum The first question dealt with the topic of what people’s knowledge on autism.
All of the interviewees agreed that the social spectrum of autism is a major thing that is well-known along with difficulty of communication. A hundred percent of the answers given by the interviewees said that the social spectrum of autism can contain things such as difficulty with learning, verbal skills, non-verbal skills, brilliancy, body awareness, and difficulty with communication of their emotions and how to express them. Some of the interviewees had mentioned the movie Rain Man and that this is where information was retained on what autism is, and how the ‘huge spectrum” that autism contains was
recognized.
Communication
Another major theme in the first question was communication and how communication is very problematic for either the person with autism to communicate, or someone without autism to communicate with someone who does have autism. Eighty percent of the answers given by the interviewees said that communication was a very challenging situation that people who have autism deal with. One interviewee said “it is very hard for people who have autism to communicate and express and accept emotions coming from others and their own.” Communication has been known to be very difficult with members of the autism community and all interviewees agreed that communicating can be very frustrating at some times. One interviewee had many students who had autism in her past experience and the response to communication with autistic children was “They are socially okay with other students and had a few students that were shy but never did not communicate with other students.”
Difficulty
The second and third question had one major theme in common which was difficulty with those who have autism, whether be with the experience with an autistic person or being a stereotype thought autistic people have. The third question asked what people think are stereotypes of those who have autism and all of the interviews held stated eighty percent of them had the stereotype of difficulty. Forty percent of the interviews were dealing with patients of their own when experiencing with someone who has autism. These patients who had autism were difficult because they did not know how to interact with them or they had to be very specific with every procedure that was going to be done. Sixty percent of the interviews had very unique stories with autism, one being with students, another with a two year old and another with a lifetime friend.
Repetition/Memorization
The second question asked the interviewees to tell the interviewer an experience they had encountered with someone who has autism. Sixty percent said they encountered either repetition or memorization. Forty percent of interviewees had declared encountering a two year old that had memorized all the states and the capitals, and the other one had memorized the Russian national anthem and sang the song in Russian verbatim. Sixty percent of interviewees had stated the autistic person they came across had to have some type of repetition. These repetitions consisted of eating the same meal for every meal, explaining every procedure being done to a patient more than once, and singing.
Cruel/Ignorance/Assumption
The last question was asking how the stereotypes that the interviewees listed felt about them. A hundred percent of the interviewees agreed judgment was either cruel, ignorant, or just an assumption of how people with autism are being treated. Most of the interviewees agreed on the fact that assumption is just plain and simply not okay because there is such a huge a “diverse spectrum.” Another interviewee had said “It is horrible, most people just assume with people who have autism and they don’t get to actually know that person, they also have little to no knowledge on what autism even is and how to interact with them.”