Development and Initial Validation of the Autism and Neurodiversity Attitudes Scale

Background: Drawn from aspects of the autistic self-advocacy movement, the neurodiversity movement is a conceptual framework and sociopolitical movement that views neurological differences and disabilities (e.g., autism) as natural human variations that can form a central component of one's identity. This study presents the development and validation of a scale to assess endorsement of neurodiversity beliefs with respect to autism among both autistic and nonautistic adults.Methods: Diverse samples of adults were utilized to conduct exploratory (N = 249) and confirmatory (N = 259) factor analyses, resulting in a 17-item second-order three-factor model that demonstrated adequate evidence of reliability and validity.Results: The three factors consisted of Autism Anti-Stigma, Autism Permanence, and Autism as Difference. Additional analyses of measurement validity revealed that endorsement of the neurodiversity framework is positively correlated with sociopolitical engagement, and that endorsement of the neurodiversity framework is negatively correlated with negative attitudes toward people with disabilities. Self-identified autistic adults endorsed the neurodiversity framework to a greater extent than nonautistic adults.Conclusion: The validity results are congruent with the historical roots of the neurodiversity movement and the attitudes endorsed by many autistic adults. Given the factor structure and reliability results, researchers can use this scale to assess neurodiversity-affirming attitudes as a unitary construct or can use the anti-stigma subscale to assess stigma-related attitudes toward autism. This scale has utility for researchers that seek to understand and promote well-being in autistic adults, as well as research related to potential support systems in the lives of autistic adults. It can also be used to increase self-understanding among autistic individuals and allies, as this scale can be used for both autistic and nonautistic adults. Community brief What was the purpose of this study? The purpose of this study was to make a questionnaire. Future researchers can use this questionnaire to see how much a person agrees with the neurodiversity view of autism. Both autistic adults and nonautistic adults will be able to use this questionnaire. What did the researchers do? There were several steps. First, we read about neurodiversity from autistic self-advocates and researchers. Then, we made a list of sentences that someone who agrees with the neurodiversity movement would also agree with. These would be our questionnaire items. Next, we asked academic and autistic experts to review our items. After that, we sent an online survey to 502 U.S.-based adults with these items and some other questions. We carefully studied their data. What were the results of this study? The final version of our questionnaire has 17 items with 3 categories. One category is Autism Anti-Stigma. People who agreed with these items were less likely to have negative feelings toward autism or autistic people. The second category was Autism Permanence. People who agreed with these questions believed that autism is a permanent part of a person's identity. The third category was Autism as Difference. People who agreed with these questions believed that autism is not a bad thing or an illness. In general, people who agreed with the neurodiversity view of autism were less likely to have negative feelings toward people with disabilities in general and more likely to do activism to help people. Autistic people were more likely than nonautistic people to agree with the neurodiversity view of autism. What are the potential weaknesses of this study? The neurodiversity movement is bigger than just autism, but this questionnaire only looks at autism. We cannot use this questionnaire to see whether people agree with the neurodiversity view of other conditions, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or learning disabilities. Another weakness is that the reliability of some of the subcategories was low. This means that when researchers use the questionnaire, they should only look at the overall score or the score for just the Autism Anti-Stigma subcategory. The scores for the Autism as Difference and Autism Permanence subcategories will not make much sense by themselves. How will these findings help autistic adults? The neurodiversity view of autism may help autistic people's mental health. However, researchers cannot study this if there is not a questionnaire. This new questionnaire can help researchers study this topic, as well as many other important topics, to improve autistic adults' mental health.