Systematic COSMIN Review of Neurodiversity Attitudes and Knowledge Measures

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

About the autistic author marker

Bottema-Beutel, K., Guo, R., Hinson-Williams, J., Shen, Y., & Braun, C. (2026). Systematic COSMIN Review of Neurodiversity Attitudes and Knowledge Measures. Autism in Adulthood. https://doi.org/10.1177/25739581251414516

Publication date: 13 Jan 2026 Added to AutiHub: 9 Sep 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
5
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 5 (20.0%)

Abstract

Background: Many researchers seek to measure people’s knowledge of and attitudes toward neurodiversity concepts and advocacy. In this systematic literature review, we characterize measures of neurodiversity knowledge and attitudes and summarize studies that have used such measures. Methods: This study was funded by a Boston College Ignite grant aandwas preregistered on Prospero, ID# CRD420251013298. We searched ERIC, Education Source, PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, and Sociological Abstracts databases on March 11, 2025. We hand searched the journal Neurodiversity on June 11, 2025. Inclusion criteria were that studies were peer-reviewed, published in English, and included a neurodiversity knowledge or attitudes measure. For formal validation studies, we follow the COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) guidelines for describing and evaluating measurement properties and study quality. Procedures include the COSMIN Risk of Bias checklist, the COSMIN Good Measurement Properties to rate study results, and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system for synthesis and presentation. For studies in which a neurodiversity knowledge and/or attitude measure was used but not formally validated, we used an abbreviated coding scheme to assess their basic characteristics and whether they were incidentally validated on any of the nine measurement properties. Results: We located 13 studies: four validation studies of four neurodiversity attitudes measures, and nine studies using a neurodiversity knowledge and/or attitudes measure. All four measures received “very low” GRADE ratings for all aspects of content validity, and no measure received more than two “high” ratings across all measurement properties. Only one measure received a high GRADE rating corresponding with positive evidence, and this was for internal consistency of the Autism and Neurodiversity Attitudes Scale. Conclusions: We cannot recommend any of the measures we examined for use in research, but our findings suggest that continued efforts at validating these measures could be promising.

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 01:04.

Cited references
75
With a DOI
63
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
12
22 / 75 (29.3%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
6 / 75 (8.0%)
References with detected author names
69 / 75 (92.0%)
Without detected author names
6
Without a structured title
6
Without a stable identifier
12
References with raw author names still to review
3
References with external metadata lookup issues
1
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
221
From DOI or external metadata
221
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
3
110 / 221 (49.8%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 111 / 221 (50.2%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
40 / 221 (18.1%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 40 / 110 (36.4%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 24 / 186 (12.9%).
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