Botha Monique, Cage Eilidh
Division of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2022 Nov 24;13:1050897. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1050897. eCollection 2022.
While not all autism research is ableism, autism researchers can be ableist, including by talking about autistic people in sub-human terms (dehumanization), treating autistic people like objects (objectification), and making othering statements which set autistic people apart from non-autistic people, below in status (stigmatization).
This mixed-method study aimed to investigate how autism researchers construct autistic people and autism research, and to investigate whether including autistic people more in research relates to lower ableism in narratives about autistic people. We used a survey with autism researchers ( = 195) asking five open-ended questions about autism and autism research, as well as demographics, career length, contact with autistic people (familial and non-familial) and degree to which researchers involve autistic people in their research. We used content analysis to categorize narratives used by autism researchers and cues for ableism (dehumanization, objectification, and stigmatization). We then used binary-logistic regression to identify whether narrative or higher inclusion of autistic people predicted fewer ableist cues, controlling for career length and connections to autistic people.
Using medicalized narratives of autism predicted higher odds of ableist cues compared to employing social model or neutral embodiment narratives. Greater inclusion of autistic people in research predicted significantly lower odds of ableist cues, while controlling for other contact with autistic people and career length. Next, we used reflexive thematic analysis to analyze researcher's perceptions of autistic people and autism research. Narratives reflected core ideological disagreements of the field, such as whether researchers consider autism to be an intrinsic barrier to a good life, and whether researchers prioritize research which tackles "autism" versus barriers to societal inclusion for autistic people. Instrumentality (a form of objectification) was key to whether researchers considered a person to have social value with emphasis revolving around intellectual ability and independence. Lastly, language seemed to act as a tool of normalization of violence. Researchers relied on an amorphous idea of "autism" when talking about prevention or eradication, potentially because it sounds more palatable than talking about preventing "autistic people," despite autism only existing within the context of autistic people.
虽然并非所有自闭症研究都存在能力主义倾向，但自闭症研究人员可能会持有能力主义观点，包括用低于人类的措辞谈论自闭症患者（非人化）、将自闭症患者当作物品对待（物化），以及发表将自闭症患者与非自闭症患者区分开来、使其地位较低的他者化言论（污名化）。
这项混合方法研究旨在调查自闭症研究人员如何构建自闭症患者和自闭症研究，并调查在研究中更多地纳入自闭症患者是否与关于自闭症患者的叙述中较低的能力主义倾向相关。我们对195名自闭症研究人员进行了一项调查，询问了五个关于自闭症和自闭症研究的开放式问题，以及人口统计学信息、职业生涯长度、与自闭症患者（家庭和非家庭关系）的接触情况，以及研究人员在研究中让自闭症患者参与的程度。我们使用内容分析对自闭症研究人员使用的叙述以及能力主义线索（非人化、物化和污名化）进行分类。然后，我们使用二元逻辑回归来确定对自闭症患者的叙述或更高程度的纳入是否预示着较少的能力主义线索，同时控制职业生涯长度和与自闭症患者的联系。
与采用社会模型或中立体现叙述相比，使用自闭症的医学化叙述预示着出现能力主义线索的几率更高。在控制与自闭症患者的其他接触和职业生涯长度的情况下，在研究中更多地纳入自闭症患者预示着出现能力主义线索的几率显著更低。接下来，我们使用反思性主题分析来分析研究人员对自闭症患者和自闭症研究的看法。叙述反映了该领域的核心意识形态分歧，例如研究人员是否认为自闭症是美好生活的内在障碍，以及研究人员是否优先考虑解决“自闭症”的研究，而不是解决自闭症患者融入社会的障碍的研究。工具性（一种物化形式）是研究人员是否认为一个人具有社会价值的关键，重点围绕智力能力和独立性。最后，语言似乎起到了暴力常态化的工具作用。研究人员在谈论预防或根除时依赖于“自闭症”这个模糊的概念，这可能是因为它听起来比谈论预防“自闭症患者”更能让人接受，尽管自闭症只存在于自闭症患者的背景中。
