Brief Report: A Brief Video Intervention for Increasing Autism Knowledge in a General Population Sample

As many individuals in the general population will likely interact with autistic persons in various contexts, ensuring adequate autism knowledge and awareness is important. Increased knowledge of autism has been linked to positive outcomes such as a reduction in explicit bias against autism by non-autistic adults and an increase in service quality for autistic individuals provided by indirect professionals. For this study we developed an informational video about autism and employed a randomized control trial to evaluate its effectiveness at increasing autism awareness in a general population sample. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention (n = 80) or active control group (n = 72). Results from a repeated measures analysis of variance indicated that the video intervention was effective at increasing knowledge about autism. Results from this study can be applied to future educational efforts aimed at increasing awareness about autism among the general population.

Automated summary

Ensuring adequate autism knowledge and awareness among the general population is crucial, as it can lead to positive outcomes such as reduced bias against autism and improved service quality for autistic individuals. This study utilized an informational video to increase autism awareness, with results showing its effectiveness in increasing knowledge about autism. These findings can be valuable for future educational efforts focused on raising awareness about autism among the general population.