Adults’ perceptions of a child with autism

We investigated whether different types of information influenced adults’ attitudes about a child with autism. College students (n = 288) were randomly assigned to view a videotape of a boy engaging in autistic or typical behaviors and to one of four vignette conditions: no information, explanatory information, neuropsychological information (related to brain–behavior relationships), or a combined (explanatory plus neuropsychological information) condition. Participants rated their attitudes about and acceptance of the boy on the Ratings of the Child Questionnaire. Analyses revealed main effects for presence of autism, message, and gender. Participants provided more favorable ratings of the boy portraying typical rather than autistic behaviors. Participants also provided higher ratings in the explanatory or neuropsychological information conditions compared to a combined information vignette or a no vignette condition. Women provided higher ratings than men. Future research should investigate adults’ reasons for preferring vignettes with either explanatory or neuropsychological information rather than the vignette combining both types of information. Research assessing adults’ attitudes and their interactions with children with autism will provide information to determine whether their attitudes are predictive of their behaviors during interactions.