Lay abstracts

Lay abstract: Many people with a diagnosis of ‘Asperger Syndrome’ have concerns over the replacement of this label with ‘autism spectrum disorder (ASD)’ within the new diagnostic manual that was published in 2013 (DSM-5). Negative associations with labels can have implications for the development of the stigmatization of clinical disorders. Stigma associated with schizophrenia has been widely studied but there is less research on stigma associated with Asperger Syndrome or ASD. One group this is particularly salient for is those on the autism spectrum who are transitioning to university. Although declaring a diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome or ASD may allow for access to support services at university, declaration of diagnosis also raises fears of stigmatization by peers. This study asked 120 university students without any clinical diagnosis (i.e. typical university peers) to read scenarios of a student behaving in a slightly unusual way and then to rate how positive or negative they would feel in this scenario. Sometimes the person in the scenario was labelled as having ‘Asperger Syndrome’, sometimes ‘autism spectrum disorder’, sometimes ‘Schizophrenia’ and sometimes as a ‘typical student’. There were two main findings: (1) There were no differences between the clinical labels; and (2) When comparing those with a clinical label to the ‘typical student’ scenarios, participants felt both more positive and less negative when the person in the scenario had a clinical disorder. This suggests that fears of stigmatization may be unfounded within the university context and that declaration of diagnosis should be encouraged to allow access to available support services. Title: The relationship between waiting times and ‘adherence’ to the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network 98 guideline in autism spectrum disorder diagnostic services in Scotland