Summary
In Autism Online: A Comparison of Word Usage in Bloggers With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorders, the researchers present a study in which they analyze the language in blogs written by those with Autism Spectrum Disorders and the difference between blogs written by people without mental disorders. People with Autism and other related disorders primarily have problems in social interaction, specifically with communication issues and in face-to-face interaction. The web is a place where those with disorders can feel comfortable and free of the pressures of real-time personal interaction, and spend time thinking how they want to communicate. It gives them a place to be themselves and interact without fear of being judged. The researchers wanted to see if there was a significant communication difference in text of the internet between those with Autism and those without disorders, similar to the physical communication difference in personal interaction. After analyzing 50 blogs from those who have Autism (along with other requirements such as age, etc.) and 50 from those that did not have the disorder, the researchers found that there was not a large difference between the blogs in any categories (social, melancholy, ranty, work, metaphysical). The only difference was that the variability between blogs in the "social" category was much higher, which can probably be explained by the lack of social interest that is common in those with Autism Spectrum Disorders. The conclusion was that because of the lack of difference in communication patterns, blogs and the web in general are an appropriate place for those with disorders to interact socially and feel comfortable, mostly because the requirement for fast mental processing of social cues is taken away.
Discussion
It seemed really great to me that those who suffer with social and communication disorders can have a place to interact with others without feeling pressure of failure. It definitely means that those have a place to vent their feelings of anger and frustration that usually come with autism, and can possibly be a way for those with the disorder to interact with the public and possibly live a normal life, having jobs at home that required internet communication, and working through email and blogging. Hopefully the interaction online that they have can directly help them in their physical social interactions as well.
I think I read an article about this a few weeks ago. I find it interesting that there is little difference in communication patterns of those with and without autism. Of course, the article suggested that the reason for this may be that online, you can't detect all of the subtleties you can in person. (For example, tone of voice, facial expression cues and more) These are things that people with autism struggle with detecting and interpreting. By removing that component, we are then on the same level of communication.
ReplyDeleteAaron, indeed it is nice to know that Internet can enable autistic people to express their ideas easily. It makes one wonder if autism is actually a disorder or just a personality trait like introvert nature of some people.
ReplyDeleteAs Justin also points out, there were some deviations in the paper that authors did not justify well such as increased variance in 'Sociability' words and uniform representation of autistic people (maybe the people who blog can express their ideas online well in the first place).
Thanks for the informative blog !
$ubodh Prabhu
http://subodhprabhu.blogspot.com/
(from CPSC 436 class)