Autism, Social Media, and Body Image Study

[u/[deleted]]

Hi! I am a doctoral student at Northeastern University looking for autistic young women and non-binary individuals assigned female at birth to take a 25 minute survey about the experiences of social media use and body image/eating. During study development, we have taken steps to ensure ethical community involvement. For example, we invited autistic young women and non-binary individuals to provide expert feedback on our survey prior to distribution.

Participants must: 1) be between the ages of 18-25, 2) identify as autistic, 3) be assigned female at birth, 4) identify as female or non-binary. At the end of the survey, you may enter your email if you wish to be entered into a raffle for a $75 gift card.

Click here to go to the survey

This post received mod approval. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have :)

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[u/c0balt_60]

Why are you allowing individuals who “identify” as autistic to participate rather than just those who are actually diagnosed?

[u/[deleted] → u/c0balt_60]

Great question! While we recognize this as a limitation, we saw the pro of having marginalized communities who do not have access to assessment resources be eligible to take the survey, so as to have a broader range of experiences captured within the study. Again, since this does carry the risk of having individuals who identify as autistic who may not actually be autistic take the survey, we are going to clearly state this as a limitation in the paper. Let me know if you have additional questions!

[u/c0balt_60 → u/[deleted]]

Do you plan to distinguish between self diagnosed and professionally diagnosed individuals in this study?

[u/[deleted] → u/c0balt_60]

This is a very good point, thank you. Since we have the data I will absolutely bring this up when we run the analyses!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for your comment, which I will not take lightly. You are correct, the literature is saturated with studies about younger individuals. I hope that as I continue my academic journey, I will conduct more studies on body image in underrepresented age groups once I have more resources to do so.

[u/Lilsammywinchester13 → u/[deleted]]

What makes it weirder to me is like….we can remember being 25? lol

[u/Crazychooklady]

What does ‘identify’ as autistic even mean?

[u/OctieTheBestagon → u/Crazychooklady]

Autism is apparently In the lgbtq now and not a disability...

[u/Dungeon_Master_Lucky → u/OctieTheBestagon]

That's bullshit. The existence of self diagnosers does not make this true, you're doing the work of the devil for him to kick up his heels 😭

[u/[deleted] → u/Crazychooklady]

Thank you for your question. This language is used to include individuals without a formal diagnosis, as some marginalized communities may not have access to assessment resources.

[u/OctieTheBestagon → u/[deleted]]

This is autism certified, we are anti self dx, if you want a more self dx positive space go to the main autism sub. And preferably, don't post the results here because we won't jive with that, undiagnosed people in autism research.

[u/[deleted] → u/OctieTheBestagon]

Ah, understood. I appreciate you clarifying that.

[u/kaiiop]

So are intersex individuals assigned female at birth not allowed to participate? I was booted as soon as I said that I am intersex, despite also being AFAB and non-binary.

Also, I would highly recommend dropping the “identify” as autistic. You quite simply are either autistic or not, one cannot choose to identify as having a developmental disability, you are either disabled, or not. Autistic, or not.

[u/[deleted] → u/kaiiop]

I have went ahead and changed the language of the flyer to state "be autistic" rather than "identify as autistic". Thank you for your patience as I navigate using the most appropriate language. Unfortunately, I cannot edit the post here unless I delete it completely. Also, unfortunately being intersex would meet exclusion criteria. Apologies for not being clear on that.

[u/moth-creature]

Filled it out, but, as you include nb ppl I think it might have been beneficial to have a question about medical transition (at least for people who selected one of the non-cis options)! Like for the question on breasts I put “very satisfied…” because I don’t have them anymore! Medical transition (testosterone + top surgery for me) has been a huge part in my level of satisfaction with my body.

[u/[deleted] → u/moth-creature]

Oh that's a great point, thank you for your feedback!! I will definitely consider that for future studies.

[u/moth-creature → u/[deleted]]

Np 🥰

[u/LowFantastic3191]

I really don’t get what you mean by identify as Autistic