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Current State of ASD Knowledge in the General Population
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) occurs in 1 and 59 children (Baio et al., 2018). Early identification is crucial and is linked to successful outcomes (Dawson et al., 2010). Parents/caregivers may be among the first in a child’s life to notice developmental delays. Knowledge and a strong understanding of ASD may result in parents noticing and reporting ASD symptoms to appropriate professionals (e.g., pediatrician) allowing for earlier diagnosis and intervention. Measuring ASD in the general population is an important first step in understanding the importance of ASD knowledge and providing insight into potential knowledge-based interventions within this population.
Objectives:
This presentation describes the current level of ASD knowledge in the general population and investigates the relationship between specific demographic factors (e.g., age, race/ethnicity, SES, education, parent status) and ASD knowledge.
Methods:
Adults (N=180) from the general population participated in the current study. Participants were predominantly White, male, and married or in a domestic partnership. All data were collected electronically on Qualtrics via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Following consent, participants completed screening questions, a brief demographic questionnaire, and the Autism Spectrum Knowledge Scale, General Population Version (ASKSG; McClain, Harris, Schwartz, Benallie, Golson, & Benney, in review), a 31-item measure of ASD knowledge. Descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc analyses where appropriate were used to analyze data.
Results:
Overall, the general population answered 62% of the ASKSG questions correctly, on average. Only five questions (16.12%) were answered with an accuracy greater than 80%. Additionally, nine questions (29.03%) were answered with an accuracy less than 50%. Participants were less knowledgeable about the assessment and diagnosis of ASD and the most knowledgeable about ASD symptoms and behaviors. Results also indicated a significant difference in ASD knowledge across gender, race/ethnicity, education level, parent status, and child disability status. More comprehensive results will be presented and discussed.
Conclusions:
The general population’s knowledge of ASD is limited, particularly surrounding assessment and diagnosis, etiology and outcomes, and treatment of ASD. ASD knowledge was found to differ across demographic variables. Specifics will be discussed in the presentation. Although the general population, namely parents/caregivers, have great opportunities to witness signs and symptoms of ASD in early childhood, their limited knowledge of ASD may prevent them from recognizing and reporting signs to trained professionals. These results may have implications for early diagnosis and intervention. This might partially explain why the average age of diagnosis is 4 years old (Christensen et al., 2016) but professionals can reliably diagnosis at 2 years of age (Baio et al., 2018). If the general population is properly educated regarding ASD, early diagnostic rates may improve. In turn, more children may be able to receive earlier intervention services and experience better outcomes. This presentation will provide attendees with implications of the research and how the results can be utilized to improve ASD knowledge within the general population.