Exploring Autistic College Students' Perceptions and Management of Peer Stigma: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis.
Autistic college students use hiding and selective disclosure to dodge peer stigma, so BCBAs should push peer education instead of forcing self-advocacy.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Cruz-Montecinos et al. (2024) talked with autistic college students about peer stigma.
They used long interviews so students could tell their own stories.
The team asked how students spot stigma and what they do about it.
What they found
Students hide autism traits to fit in.
They pick who to tell and compare themselves to peers.
These steps help them feel safer on campus.
How this fits with other research
Ohan et al. (2015) found that telling peers a student has autism can boost positive views.
Cruz-Montecinos et al. (2024) shows students still hide even though labels can help.
The gap is viewpoint: peers react better, yet students fear stigma anyway.
Wormald et al. (2019) showed autistic students share struggles with other disabled students.
Cruz-Montecinos et al. (2024) zooms in on autism-only tactics like masking and selective disclosure.
McQuaid et al. (2024) moved the same hiding game into the workplace, proving the pattern lasts after college.
Why it matters
Your students may be masking and you will not know.
Swap self-advocacy pressure for campus-wide neurodiversity lessons.
Run short peer trainings like Bottema-Beutel et al. (2015) so students feel safe to disclose.
Check in privately; ask who else knows and respect silence.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Autistic college students are often forced to navigate stigma on campus, but little is known about how autistic college students manage communicated stigma. Semi-structured interviews with ten autistic college students were conducted to explore how they manage peer stigma. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to identify three themes from the data: First, participants seek to avoid peer stigma by concealing attributes associated with autism. Next, participants buffer against peer stigma by engaging in favorable social comparison. Finally, participants perceive the autism label as highly stigmatizing, necessitating limited disclosure on campus. These results can help researchers and practitioners focus efforts to promote neurodiversity to both autistic students and their peers on campus.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2024 · doi:10.1080/1034912X.2017.1403573