Impact Of Labels On Peer Perceptions Of Prognostic Outlook

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess participants' social acceptance and prognostic outlook toward peers who have autistic disorder, learning disorder, or no disabilities and to explore the possibility that gender interacts with disability status in influencing participants' perceptions of peers with disabilities. Participants included 163 undergraduate college students. Measures of attitude toward disability and prognostic outlook were assessed using an attitude towards disabilities survey, a vignette, a prognostic outlook survey, a knowledge survey of autistic disorder, and a knowledge survey of learning disorder. Data were analyzed using a 2 x 3 analysis of variance, with disability status (autism, learning disorder, or no disability) and gender (male, female) of the individual depicted in the vignette as the independent variables and rated prognostic outlook as the dependent variable. A correlation was used to examine prognostic outlook, attitudes toward disabled persons, knowledge of autistic disorder and knowledge of learning disabilities. Results indicated a significant interaction between vignette gender and vignette disability label. Prognostic outlook was rated significantly lower for the autistic disorder group than for the group with no disability label. Results from simple main effects tests revealed a significant difference between rated prognostic outlooks of females with a learning disability compared to males with a learning disability. Indicating that males with a learning disability were rated significantly lower on prognostic outlook than females with a learning disability.