Talk to Me, Not About Me: Has News Coverage about Autism Begun to Embody More Perspectives of the Neurodiversity Movement?
Social Sciences
Psychology Senior Thesis
Neurodiversity refers to the idea that developmentally, cognitively, and psychologically disabled people possess a unique blend of skills different from the norm, rather than not being as smart or well-functioning as non-disabled people. Autism can be defined through a neurodiversity lens; however, it is often viewed in terms of a series of deficits that must be corrected rather than a complex identity in need of accommodation. This study involved coding news articles from The Washington Post website about autism from January 2007 through December 2016 to determine if and how the way autism is reported has changed over time. It is hypothesized that articles will contain more elements of the neurodiversity paradigm over time. The overall valence of how each article framed autism was coded, and four neurodiversity measures and four deficit measures made up a composite neurodiversity score and composite deficit score, respectively. Articles’ valence and composite neurodiversity score significantly increased over time, and the composite deficit score significantly decreased over time. However, not all of the individual neurodiversity and deficit scores experienced significant changes. The findings suggest that although some perspectives of the neurodiversity movement became more present over time, such perspectives did not replace deficit perspectives of autism
