Short report: Autistic adults’ recommendations on how to improve autistic portrayals in TV-series and movies

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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Orm, S., Dean, M., Fletcher-Watson, S., & Nordahl-Hansen, A. (2023). Short report: Autistic adults’ recommendations on how to improve autistic portrayals in TV-series and movies. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 136, 104484. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104484

Journal or book title
Research in Developmental Disabilities
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Volume
136
Pages
104484
Article number
104484
Publication date: 21 Mar 2023 Added to AutiHub: 20 Sep 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
Publisher source (DOI) Full text OpenAlex source

This publication is integrated into AutiHub through:

Authors

Publication authors
4
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 4 (25.0%)
  1. Stian Orm *
  2. Michelle Dean
  3. Sue Fletcher-Watson
  4. Anders Nordahl-Hansen

Abstract

BACKGROUND: TV-series and movies are important sources of knowledge about autism for the general public. AIMS: This study's purpose was to elicit autistic adults' opinions on portrayals of autistic characters in film and television productions and how this can be improved. METHODS AND PROCEDURE: In this study, we examined the recommendations of autistic adults (n = 798, Mage = 30.3, 48% female) and non-autistic adults (n = 1463, Mage = 35.0, 62% female) from 90 countries on how film and television productions can improve autistic portrayals. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Autistic adults rated three improvement factors as most important: (1) Appointing autistic writers, (2) Having an autistic consultant, and (3) Representing greater diversity in autistic characters. Compared to the non-autistic groups, autistic adults rated "Appointing autistic writers" as more important. Autistic participants also endorsed "Having an autism-expert consultant" and "Making the character display all relevant diagnostic criteria" significantly less than non-autistic groups. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Participants strongly endorsed that autistic adults should to a much larger extent be included as writers, consultants and actors to enhance the making of autistic characters in film and TV.

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: 3 Oct 2026 01:01.

Cited references
33
With a DOI
26
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
7
6 / 33 (18.2%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
4 / 33 (12.1%)
References with detected author names
30 / 33 (90.9%)
Without detected author names
3
Without a structured title
3
Without a stable identifier
7
References with raw author names still to review
2
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
79
From DOI or external metadata
79
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
2
37 / 79 (46.8%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 42 / 79 (53.2%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
6 / 79 (7.6%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 6 / 37 (16.2%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 3 / 64 (4.7%).
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