Brief Report: Social Behavior and Special Interests in the Stigmatization of Autistic College Students

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

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Stockwell, K. M., Bottini, S., Jaswal, V. K., & Gillis, J. M. (2020). Brief Report: Social Behavior and Special Interests in the Stigmatization of Autistic College Students. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51(9), 3356-3364. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04769-w

Publication date: 4 Nov 2020 Added to AutiHub: 23 Aug 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) OpenAlex source

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Authors

Publication authors
4
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 4 (25.0%)
  1. Kayden M. Stockwell *
  2. Summer Bottini
  3. Vikram K. Jaswal
  4. Jennifer M. Gillis

Abstract

Autistic people, by definition, differ in social behavior from non-autistic individuals. One characteristic common to many autistic people is a special interest in a particular topic-something spoken about with such frequency and intensity that it may be stigmatized by non-autistic peers. We investigated college students' interest in interacting with peers described as behaving in ways characteristic of autism (or not), and additionally described as having a special interest (or not). As expected, autistic characters were more stigmatized, but autistic characters with a special interest were not more stigmatized than those without. Only among non-autistic characters was having a special interest associated with greater stigmatization. Findings give further insight into factors influencing the stigmatization of autistic college students.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 12 Sep 2026 17:55.

Cited references
45
With a DOI
39
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
4
3 / 45 (6.7%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
3 / 45 (6.7%)
References with detected author names
43 / 45 (95.6%)
Without detected author names
2
Without a structured title
3
Without a stable identifier
4
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
143
From DOI or external metadata
143
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
2
54 / 143 (37.8%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 89 / 143 (62.2%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
3 / 143 (2.1%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 3 / 54 (5.6%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 3 / 125 (2.4%).
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