Thesis advisor: Kristen Bottema-Beutel / Autism is often framed using a deficit lens with ableist beliefs and medical model perspectives promoting the curing, treatment, or camouflaging of autistic characteristics. This contributes to poor outcomes experienced by many within the autistic community, including but not limited to victimization at higher rates (Fisher & Lounds Taylor, 2016; Nansel et al., 2001), lower satisfaction with quality of life in work, education, and relationships (Barneveld et al., 2014), suicidal ideation at higher frequencies (Mayes et al., 2013), and low self-esteem and high depression and anxiety (Cooper et al., 2017). Increased efforts are necessary to better understand how to support positive autistic identity development. This dissertation is comprised of three papers outlined below, aimed at exploring autistic identity. Paper 1 sought to analyze how autistic adults without a formal autism diagnosis construct autistic identities in the narratives they tell about disclosure or talking to other about being autistic. Through interviewing using participant-preferred modalities, narratives were elicited from 15 self-identified autistic adults. Narratives were thematically and then discursively examined using Bamberg’s 3-level model of positioning (Bamberg, 1997). Analysis showed that positioning techniques like reported speech, double-voiced discourse, and juxtaposition of characters were used by participants to reveal doubt experienced in self-identifying, claim autistic membership, and assert autism expertise. For autistic adults without formal diagnosis, discussing autism and sharing their autistic identification can be a challenging experience. Understanding how these exchanges are narrated can offer insight on how to better support and affirm self-identified autistic adults. Paper 2 examined the experiences of autistic adolescents and their caregivers of engaging in talk about autism. Adopting a multiperspectival interpretative phenomenological analytic (IPA) approach, 3 parent-child dyads were recruited and individually interviewed. Parents and adolescents were treated as separate participant groups and analysis of individual interviews was followed by cross-case analysis to identify group experiential themes. Adolescents found that conversations with their mothers impacted their autistic identity by strengthening perceived areas of difficulty related to autism and helping them to better understand themselves and conceptualizing autism. Caregivers noted that conversations about autism with their child felt natural, were spaces to frame autism in particular ways, and were opportunities to guide them through challenging social situations and offer support. This IPA study contributes to autism research in describing the psychosocial experience of autism-related talk between parent and child, appreciating the multiple perspectives involved in these interactions. Using hierarchical regression and mediation models, Paper 3 identified the relationships between (a) awareness and knowledge about autism, (b) orientation to neurodiversity perspectives, (c) level of outness, (d) autism-related stigma consciousness, (e) autistic identity, and (f) mental well-being of autistic adults. A sample of 169 participants completed an online survey comprised of measures indexing these constructs. Autism awareness and knowledge, alignment with neurodiversity perspectives, outness, and stigma consciousness were predictive of autistic identity when controlling for gender, sexuality, and number of years knowing about autistic status. When entered into the regression model together, only orientation to neurodiversity perspectives uniquely predicted autistic identity. Additionally, results showed that autistic identity mediated the relationship between stigma-related consciousness and mental wellbeing. This work offers direction for promoting positive autistic identity development. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

The values of the disability rights movement and community psychology promote research that focuses on improving the lives of individuals with disabilities (Dowrick & Keys, 2001). Using the Internet for social interactions has been shown to contribute to an individual's identity development, sense of community, and well-being (Obst, Zinkiewicz, & Smith, 2002a; Turkle, 1995). While challenges in typical social interactions have traditionally been considered a defining feature of autism spectrum disorder, autistic individuals have taken advantage of the Internet to develop social interactions (Blume, 1997a). The present study focused on the online Autistic community and how the importance and value of involvement in it is related to Autistic identity, sense of community, and psychological well-being. The Academic Autistic Spectrum Partnership in Research and Education (AASPIRE) partnered with the Gernsbacher Lab to form the Gateway Project. Using the Gateway Project, AASPIRE conducted the Internet Use, Community, and Well-Being Study and collected data from 72 autistic adults online. It was hypothesized that the importance and value of involvement in the online Autistic community would be positively related to Autistic identity and sense of community, Autistic identity and sense of community would be positively related, and Autistic identity and sense of community would be positively related to psychological well-being. It was also hypothesized that the positive relationship between the importance and value of involvement in the online Autistic community and psychological well-being would be mediated by Autistic identity and sense of community. Correlations were examined among the hypothesized relationships, and a mediated regression model (Baron & Kenny, 1986) was used to explore the relationship between the importance and value of involvement in the online Autistic community and psychological well-being with Autistic identity and sense of community as mediators. Significant relationships were found between the importance and value of involvement in the online Autistic community and Autistic identity, between the importance and value of involvement in the online Autistic community and sense of community, and between autistic identity and sense of community. As a first step to test the mediated regression models, psychological well-being was regressed on the importance and value of involvement in the online Autistic community. The regression was not significant; therefore the hypothesized model was not significant. Despite non-significant mediated regression model results, significant relationships among the importance and value of involvement in the online Autistic community and Autistic identity and sense of community offer important results. These finding illuminate the potential positive impact of the importance and value of involvement in the online Autistic community, including evidence counter to the myth that autistic individuals lack skills necessary for social relationships. These findings support the positive utility of involvement in the online Autistic community for autistic adults. Further research with a larger sample size is recommended, due to low power coefficients in the analyses. Additional research may also further illuminate the findings of the current study. Possible topics may include sense of community and Autistic identity in individuals that do not use the Internet, differences in the way the Internet is used in autistic individuals, and different measures of involvement in the online Autistic community and well-being.