AP Research: Correlating the access toys, books, and similar stimulants to sociability and language in children diagnosed with ASD.
Advisor: Bryan Meyerowitz
In the decade between 2011 and 2022 alone, rates of Autism diagnoses have grown by 175%, if not more.
Ever since its official “creation” in 1944, rates of diagnoses have been going up rapidly. Despite this rapid
increase, the autistic community is still just 1% of the world population, more than enough to be treated
as a minority.
Film and media are some of the most powerful influences that the public has to make opinions on. Be it
foreign countries, new policies, or most importantly, opinions and treatment of minorities, film portrays it
all. In order to understand public perception of Autism and to address it should it need addressing, one
must first seek understanding of its causes. As such, this paper aims to understand how movie portrayal of
autism has evolved over the years as the condition grew more and more common.
As such, this paper is largely comprised of film reviews, looking at various movies across the decades
that depict autism. These films were rated using Safran’s guidelines for good movie representation of
disabilities and given an overall score based on Atkinson’s research.
Project Blog
Post 1: INTRODUCTION - Correlating the environmental factors that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder grew up in to the development of communication, theory of mind and sociability.
CONTEXT:
Current research in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is largely focused "why autism happens," be it looking at genetics, or the structure of the brain, there is well documented research for it. It's all very focused on understanding the mechanics behind ASD and not ASD itself. How it grows, and how it manifests is often less researched, and that is what this project hopes on tackling.
For me, this project holds a deeper meaning, since I feel that this is a way for me to further understand my brother, who has been diagnosed with ASD. Over the past ~15 years, I've seen his development and growth, especially in his communicational abilities, and want to see how it shows in others.
With this research project, I hope to find and document some level of correlation between the environment at early life to communication, sociability, and theory of mind (all three of which will be referred to as CST in future blog posts).
BASIC DEFINITIONS:
Communication describes the ability of a person to make their intentions known, this can be through language, it can be through body language, or various noises, like how some of us likely use "mhm" to indicate yes or approval.
Sociability describes how social a person is, how do they interact with people, especially strangers and unfamiliar people.
Theory of Mind is the ability for a person to understand the intentions of another person, and that they are likely different.
HYPOTHESIS:
I believe that of the various environmental factors I plan on asking various parents about (will be discussed in a future blog about my methodology), internet access may have the highest impact. Internet would likely have a high correlation to theory of mind, since you now need to be able to understand others intentions through basic text, but a low correlation with sociability, due to the lack of actual person to person interaction.
ORAL DEFENSE
"What was the fundamental argument/idea in your research? How does this argument/idea relate to the primary purpose of your research?"
The fundamental idea on this project is that people with ASD tackle and grow their CST in a different nature and rate than neurotypical people. If this idea were to be found falsified (most research tends to support this idea luckily), then there would be no more value or significance in this research.
Post 2: Literature Review and Methodology
Introduction
Naturally, anything related to the brain and its behaviors is quite a daunting task to understand on your own. Luckily, a plethora of research, while not related to autism, is related to human behavior, and the 3 points my research hopes to address, are communication, sociability, and theory of mind. These research papers are the foundations of my preliminary knowledge and of my methodology.
Paper 1 - The Relation of Infants' Home Environments to Mental Test Performance at 3 Years
This paper by Richard Elardo, Robert Bradley, and Bettye M. Caldwell utilizes the HOME environment test in conjunction with the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) to correlate the environment of the home with the 3 topics I am focusing on. Unfortunately, this study does not look at neurodivergent children and is the primary way in which my research diverges from this one.
The Results
The study found various correlations between the HOME test and the IPTA, with the most intriguing being the correlations between the HOME scores of parent involvement, and physical conditions (i.e stuffed toys, toys, clean environment, etc), which had the highest correlation to ITPA scores, indicating that the environment DOES indeed affect levels of cognition.
Paper 2 - The Relation of Infants' Home Environments to Mental Test Performance at 54 Months: A Follow Up Study
This study largely follows up on the previous study. In this one, they focus much more on the idea of "stimulation," or objects that capture the attention and occupy children (so in this case, still toys, books, etc). Ultimately, they confirm the findings of the previous study finding that higher levels of stimulation result in higher mental test scores.
Paper 3 - Introduction: Autism and Discourse
Not particularly a dedicated research paper/study. But, what it is, is the introduction for a journal that discusses how children diagnosed with high-functioning autism or Aspergers function/communicate throughout the day. What they establish in this portion is a foundational fact that my entire research is based on: children with ASD can communicate, pick up cues, and understand people perfectly fine, but they often do so in a very different way.
People with ASD interact with people in a very different way, and without this fact, There is no purpose for this research.
Conclusion
These 3 studies form the main framework of my research, establishing the base facts and heavily inspiring my research methodology. Of course, this framework is further built on using various other studies that analyze the effects of the internet on communication, various teaching strategies for english, and their effects on the neurodivergent, and the “normal” trends of language.
This allows me to create research that joins these 2 fields, finally correlating the HOME scores with autism
My methodology primarily focuses on a survey, with the first half being a modified variant of the HOME-SF (short form) test that has been made into not requiring any interviewer observations.
The second and third portions are questions asking parents to describe their child’s communication, sociability theory of mind, and demographics respectively. All of these questions were kept in multiple-choice to preserve privacy.
How is the method/proccess you chose aligned with the purpose of your research? Which methods did you consider and reject?
I believe a survey is the ultimate way to perform a HOME test on a large group, ultimately making its extremely specific questions both more applicable to answer my own, and do so with ensuring a solid sample size.
I had originally wanted to do interviews with the children, similar to the first paper I mentioned, but ultimately scrapped this idea due to:
Time constraints - cannot interview 70+ children
Ethical Considerations - Children + Neurodivergent is a very fickle topic to research on, and if possible to avoid direct interaction, is best to do so.
Practicality - Convincing many parents to allow some high schooler to interview their child is quite frankly, unfeasible.
However, despite all this, I am planning on shifting the direction if this research, so be on the lookout for the next blog, which will be a new direction in my research into autism!
Post 3: Research Focus Switch: A combined version of blog 1 & 2, expect a combined 3&4 in the upcoming blog!
Part 1:
Hey everyone!
After some consideration, deliberation, conversation, and many more "-tions" I have decided to switch the focus of my research. Still focusing on autism, the research is now focused on the portrayal of autism in film as perception of autism changes.
For a solid RQ, here it is: "How has the portrayal of autism changed in films as public perception of autism has changed over the past few decades?"
Reason:
My prior RQ was heavily reliant on the fact that I would get sufficient responses on a survey, which, quite frankly, I will not get. Should the organizations I contact agree to the survey, the actual number of people they send the survey out to and the number that actually answer it would be far too low to be significant. After all, how many of us answer random surveys we get in our mail? (Unless it is school-mandated)
Context
Media is more popular than before and is a MASSIVE force in shaping public perception. As a result, a plethora of researchers have been analyzing marginalized communities and minorities and their depictions in media. Unfortunately, autism has not exactly been deeply looked at in this. As a topic of important to me, I decided to fill this gap.
Hypothesis
I largely believe that there will be a general trend, BUT I more strongly expect a point where the films shift away from the "savant," "superhuman" nature of autism, and move closer to a "normalized" (or in line with expert opinion) depiction.
PART 2:
Important pieces of literature:
Once again, will rely on and make the most use of 3 papers.
Paper 1: Stereotypes of Autism:
It's a self-explanatory title. Draaisma, the author, goes through various exceedingly common autistic stereotypes from savantism to obscene levels of bluntness and provides a loose comparison to various expert opinions (including Asperger). This article provides a valuable starting point, introducing some basic but common stereotypes and introducing me to the idea of comparing movie depictions vs what is real or a proper expert opinion.
Paper 2: American Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, 2001, pp. 177–78. THE BLACK IMAGE IN THE WHITE MIND: Media and Race in America (INTRODUCTION)
One idea I had was to utilize similar research on other marginalized communities to, and I stumbled on an issue that provides the entire purpose for my research. The idea is that certain media representations will become an issue. In this case, the authors (Robert M. Entman, Andrew Rojecki) specifically point out that dominant groups (in the context of this article "whites" will understand this movie portrayal to be representative of the marginalized community, and the marginalized community (African Americans) would come to accept that depiction as who they are.
I couldn't find any reason why this issue of poor media representation doesn't transfer to other minorities, and the first step to tackling the current representation of autism, is to properly understand it, and its evolution.
Paper 3: Autism, through a Social Lens.
This paper is largely filled with sociologist opinions on autism. Sociologists focus on the social aspects of this condition, from affected families to societal perception, etc. This provides a powerful baseline of expert opinion to compare movie portrayals to. After all, despite many critics, and even Draaisma focusing heavily on savantism, it Is unfair to completely disregard any other traits the character shows.
ORAL DEFENSE:
"What was the fundamental argument/idea in your research? How does this argument/idea relate to the primary purpose of your research?"
2 Fundamental arguments:
1. That portrayal of autism has changed in films over time
This fundamental argument works more as a hypothesis; if I find that portrayal has not changed, I believe that would be an equally interesting discovery.
2. That the perception of autism has changed, be it due to higher diagnosis rates or other factors.
This is the main fundamental argument: should this be falsified, then any "change" I find in movie portrayals would either have to be correlated to randomness or some strange external factor.
How is the method/proccess you chose aligned with the purpose of your research? Which methods did you consider and reject?
In order to truly understand the changes, simply looking at the major characteristics of the autistic character's condition isn't enough. It's the little details that matter: stimming, pacing, and strangely unique behaviors that no one else in the film seems to do, etc. As such, I believe comparing both the major characteristics and the minor characteristics with expert opinion is a powerful way to organize the portrayal.
Post 4: Methodology
Honestly, I don't really have a good introduction to segway into this, so let's just jump right into the meat.
Movie Selection Criteria
Criteria 1: The Movie must be following the publication of DSM 3 (where autism was first formally introduced), in 1980
Criteria 2: The Movie must have Autism as either a central point or of genuine plot relevance
Criteria 3: Must be at least one film for each decade from 1980 to the present day
Film Rating System:
The primary system follows Stephen P. Safran's film analysis guide, which was published in his paper Using Movies to Teach Students about Disabilities. This paper follows why and how teachers should use various films to teach students about various disabilities and contains both guidelines for the teacher to select the film and a questionnaire for students to fill out, asking them to rate depictions on a Likert scale and other questions. For the purposes of this research, just the rating part should suffice.
Rating Questions:
Please respond to each of these statements in the space provided based upon your viewing of the film. Provide an example whenever applicable.
Provide a score 1-5, and provide an example:
Positive Representations
The person with a disability…
Has a complex personality, with a full range of emotions. _____
Interacts as equal. _____
Is part of the mainstream, for example, holds a job, is a family member, or a student in a general education class. _____
Is featured as an "extra" who happens to have a disability. _____
Is portrayed as an ordinary person without superhuman abilities. _____
Provides insight into societal barriers. _____
Is shown in loving relationship and expresses age-appropriate sexual needs. _____
Negative Representations
The person with a disability is …
Pitiable and pathetic. _____
Object of violence. _____
Sinister or evil. _____
"Superhuman" in abilities or effect on others _____
Subject of humor _____
A burden. _____
Lives separated from mainstream society. _____
Each film will be scored with these guidelines. Unfortunately, rating the overall film as a "good portrayal" or a "bad portrayal" would still be overly vague without a set criteria, and Safran's work does not include a way to rate the overall film. Luckily, in a research by V. Sue Atkinson, they make use of the same guidelines (but for TV shows), and classify movies as an overall good representation or bad representation by taking the mean of the positive representation scores and subtracting the mean of the negative representation scores from it. An overall negative score implies a poor representation, and a positive score implies a good representation.
Analysis/Trend Analyzing:
Ultimately, 2 things will be analyzed:
1. general trend of movies, for this, just seeing the trend of the overall movie scores would be enough, if I see the general scores go from -1 to +3, I can say overall, movies have gotten better representations. (I expect to see no change in this portion, ie, -1 will still be -1)
2. Specific Trends: Analyze the trends for the individual scores in the guidelines, I.e, how has "object of violence" changed over the years.
3. Qualitative Trends: i.e, "superhuman abilities" have gone from showing a ton of savantism to a weirdly supernatural influence on others' behaviors.
And that, good friends, dear readers, and gentle listeners, is my methodology.
Post 5: Blog #4: Preliminary Data - the movies, and a broad overview of themes
Introduction
Hey hey! It's that time of the week! I'm back and have no idea how to segway us into our topic, just like the previous blog!
Speaking of the previous blog, let's rehash the criteria for movie selection to further create some clarity and specificity:
The movie must be a Western production (European, American, English etc) (Most of the films selected will have been American)
The movie must have a character with Autism (either directly stated or heavily implied)
2 movies for each decade (I am excluding 2020 - Present day as this decade has not completed), resulting in a total of 8 movies
The Selected Movies + Summaries
1980s
1988 - Rain Man: One of the first films to be released about Autism following the release of DSM III, and widely considered one of the most "mainstream" movies about autism.
Brief Summary - After car dealer Charlie Babbit's father died, he learns that his autistic older brother, Raymond, was left an inheritance of millions. Babbit begins a cross country trip with raymond for the purpose of money but quickly finds that this trip would change both of their lives.
1989 - The Wizard
Brief Summary - After Corey's little brother was put into a mental institution, Corey breaks out his little brother. While traveling, it turns out the little brother is exceptional at video games, having them turn into a video game competition.
1980s general theme: Travel. Throughout many films, we see the idea of exploration and personal growth as a major theme. Especially in films regarding autism. It seems inspirational journeys was a key idea in early depiction.
1990s
1998 - Mercury Rising
After a 9 year old autistic savant cracks an "unbreakable" government code, an FBI rogue agent protects the child as the government hunts the "liability" down.
1999 - The Other Sister
Carla was sent to a school for children with intellectual impairments. Much later, Carla returns home where her family must come to accept Carla's independance.
1990 general theme:
While keeping the general idea of "self growth," this decade of films seem to focus much more on the role of the neurodivergent in a group, be it the nation, or a family.
2000s
2005 - Mozart and the Whale
Follows a New York taxi driver with Asperger's Syndrome (DSM V in 2013 modified it into the Autism Spectrum). Donald (the driver) is extremely intelligent but rather introverted/shy. Following the creation of a support group for similarly diagnosed people, Donald meets Isabelle, extremely blunt and easily irritable, and the two fall in love.
2009 - Adam
Adam, a sheltered young man with Asperger's falls in love with his new neighbor Beth. Beth quickly pulls adam to the outside world, showing him a plethora of new experiences.
2000s general summary
Significantly more focused on the idea of Asperger's Syndrome (likely due to its official classification in DSM IV in 1994), this decade at a glance doesn't seem to focus on the idea of diagnosed people's emotions, feelings of love, happiness, and everything else.
2010s: the last decade.
2010 - A Brilliant Young Mind
A socially awkward, autistic math prodigy who finds comfort in numbers and patterns. Nathan (the prodigy) joins a math olympiad competition. The movie follows Nathan and the relationships he forms as he works for this math olympiad.
2016 - The Accountant
Christian, a math savant who usually works as an accountant for criminal organizations, is suddenly given a legitimate client to find the root of a discrepancy of millions of dollars.
2010s general summary
Interestingly, both movies involve a math savant, of course, in vastly different roles (student, math olympiad vs criminal). Generally alarming however, is the idea that the savant, if nothing else, has gotten more popular. While the 1980s and 90s contained a singular film with savants, the remaining decades focused significantly more on hyper-intelligence.
Conclusion
At a glance, the changes may seem minor, with thematic changes all decade to decade. But, I believe that as I get a more detailed analysis using Safran's guidelines and look at the nuances of the character, we will begin to see a much larger change.
Oral Defense:
What Additional Questions Emerged during your research? Based on your recent experience, what advice would you give to other researchers who might choose to investigate those questions?
Overall, from this very broad aerial view, I fear that general themes regarding Autism and Asperger's are largely the same. Much of my literature review has found, however, that movies, media, and television tend to reflect public perception (and influence it), while at the same time, ASD has become far more integrated and accepted over the years. This has led me to believe just how much the actual portrayal (actions, minor traits) of characters has changed over the years. I believe strongly that while nuances and portrayal may have changed, the issue is that themes largely remain unchanged. This is a significant issue, not every neurodivergent is a math savant capable of outsmarting supercomputers at the age of 9. Not every neurodivergent if horribly socially awkward. And not every neurodivergent is incapable of understanding emotion.
Post 6: Preliminary Data Trends
Introduction
Last week, I talked about the movies I was planning to watch. As of posting, I have completed 4/8 (one for each decade) with a full analysis. Lets just jump into the scores and what they mean. I would also like to point out that the movies have two extra criteria being I cannot have seen these movies before, and the condition the neurodivergent character is diagnosed with must be as close to autism as possible (if someone outright states the character has autism, that's even better)
The guidelines
I am still using Safran's guidelines, which have just been slightly modified for clarity. Here's what it looking like:
On a Likert scale (1-5), rate each statement and provide an example:
Positive Representation:
1. Has a complex personality, with a full range of emotions.
2. Interact as equals.
3. Is part of the mainstream, for example, holds a job, or a student in a general education class.
4. Is portrayed as an ordinary person without superhuman abilities.
5. Provides insight into societal barriers.
6. Is shown in loving relationship and expresses age-appropriate needs.
Negative Representation:
7. Pitiable and Pathetic.
8. Object of Violence.
9. Sinister or Evil.
10. “Superhuman” in abilities or effect on others.
11. Subject of Humor.
12. A Burden.
13. Lives separated from mainstream society.
The movies we have for analysis are:
1988 - Rain Man
1998 - Mercury Rising
2005 - Mozart and the Whale
2016 - The Accountant
The Scores
I will be purely listing out the scores of the movies with explanation, expect no commentary for scores of 1, as it usually indicates that there was either none, or such a negligible amount I found it wholly unimportant.
Please respond to each of these statements on the space provided based upon your viewing of the film. Provide an example whenever applicable. | Mercury rising | Mozart and the Whale | Rain Man | The Accountant
Positive Representations
Has a complex personality, with a full range of emotions. _____ | 3 For the most part, simon maintains a strong, adamant personality, acting sluggish and slow, but at times shows incredible frighteness | 5 Donald and Isabelle show every emotion imaginable, nervousness, love, caring, happieness, sadness. The side characters in the group also show varying emotions including indifference and jealousy | 4; Has emotion, moments of fear, curiosity, discomfort etc but never shows too many at once. | 5; As the character has been seen to be exceedingly blunt, we can take most of his words as the truth. Throughout the movie, he shows that he has various actions he regrets, and misses his brother. Furthermore, he also shows many of his emotions through actions, such as caring for Dana Cummings, and taking her into account as he rescues her, and in the end, gifting her a Pollock painting that he values dearly.
Interacts as equal. _____ | 4 Other than maneuvering around his autism, characters tend to treat him fair for a 9 year old | 5 As majority of the cast is autistic, Donals often interacts as equals | 3; while the movie is about Charlie learning to be with his brother, Raymond is portrayed as exceptionally naive. In addition, Charlie spends roughly the first half of the movie placing Raymond as an "idiot" who is beneath him. | 5; A regular jobholder. Interacts with clientelle of various ranges, from farmers all the way to multibillionare CEOs, and many very high profile criminals.
Is part of the mainstream, for example, holds a job, is a family member, or a student in a general education class. _____ | 2 Is seen sitting away from his class. When he returns home from the bus, simon drives past children playing baseball. When he steps into his home, the scene pans back to focus on the playing kids. | 4 while donald sometimes struggles to live in the outside world, he and the other neurodivergents function well within society, are often seen doing normal activities. | 1; Raymond lived in an institution cut off from the rest of the world, this movie is effectively his first interaction with the rest of the mainstream society since Raymond was 3. | 5; Holds a job (Accountant), and has various firms. Generally seems used to being a part of the mainstream society as his character is based around creating new identities to live in society.
Is portrayed as an ordinary person without superhuman abilities. _____ | 1 Breaks a cryptograph in like 3 seconds flat when 2 supercomputers couldnt after DAYS | 2 While donald is a math savant, many of the autistic side cast are early portrayed as crazy/insane, talking to themselves constantly, repeating the same exact phrase over and over etc. Only later in the film does the side cast begin to show signs of neurodivergence and not lunacy. | 2; Maintains the Savant status, having exceptional memory and perception, such as counting 246 toothpicks in seconds | 2; Insanely smart savant borering on superhuman intelligence. Capable of doing 15x the work of another accountant in the same time. Wolff's reputation is almost as a miracle worker, capable of fixing any issue in accounting no matter the issue.
Provides insight into societal barriers. _____ | 4 Generally portrays traits aligned with middle to high functioning autistics, and shows how they function and how the people around them see them, from varirous government agents calling him lesser, while parents and public seem to act somewhat patient, but ununderstanding | 3 only donald's struggles are easily understood. Issabelle's struggles are much more situational, along with the side cast | 4; Contains many "lab coat" scenes where a doctor explains what Autism is and how it effects the individual. | 3; The overall movie doesnt provide much. However, there are certain scenes (especially at the end) where the movie characterises autism not as lesser, but different. It does so very explicitly, by having the head of a neurodivergent institute simply say it as parents of a neurodivergent child tour the facility.
Is shown in loving relationship and expresses age-appropriate needs. _____ | 4 Absolutely, expresses a want for his parents (who were murdered), but little else. | 5 Donald and Isabelle's relationship goes through significant turmoil, as both show the proper emotions. The side cast also shows proper needs and emotions when their friend is going through this | 4; Naturally, the plot progression of the movie has him in a loving relationship with family. At a Casino, Raymond shows interst in another woman there. | 2; A decent portion of the Wolff's background is on the fact that he rejects his needs as a neurodivergent person. He also doesnt express much of his wants and needs, but does show that he indeed misses his brother.
Negative Representations
Pitiable and pathetic. _____ | 3 Largely unable to function on his own, but he is a nine year old, and takes the fact that there are people trying to kill him somewhat as a nine your old could. | 2 none of the characters are over the top heroic or noble, or anything of the sort, and go through moments easy to feel pity for, be it abandonment, rape etc, but ultimately, nothing made to make them a "damsel in distress" or anything of the sort. | 2; The viewer may feel pity over Raymond's childhood treatment. However, it is ultimately not to make his character pitiable. | 2; Wolff is a stone cold criminal accountant and a very skilled fighter, capable of handling any situation. He is also making millions a year. Any pity to the character is over his father's treatment of him, but not to make Wolff pitiable.
Object of violence. _____ | 3 The government is trying to kill him throughout the movie, but is ultimately, not violent, intent to kill, but not actually violenced against | 1 No form of violence whatsoever (there is an attempted suicide however) | 1 | 3; Wolff's father places him and his brother under harsh training, we see them being beaten to the floor.
Sinister or evil. _____ | 1 Completely innocent. He innocently calls a phone because he found a phone umber in the crypt he accidentally broke/saw through, generally has no idea whats going on other than people trying to kill him, and being carted around | 1 | 1 | 2; While Wolff is a criminal, he is never directly characterized as sinister or evil. He simply balances money.
"Superhuman" in abilities or effect on others _____ | 5 Cracks a highly advanced crypt that 2 supercomputers couldnt crack over days, in a matter of seconds | 4 Nearly every autist in the movie has some form of savantlike ability, be it knowing extremely detailed trivia to insane math skills. While individually, these savantness severety might result in a score of three, the number of savants warrants a 4. | 3; Raymond is a savant with incredible memory and perception. Memorizing almost everything he sees, and being able to count toothpicks instantly. | 4; Almost superhuman intelligence. Insanely skilled fighter, taking on multiple armed men at once.
Subject of humor _____ | 1 No | 2 a few humurous moments, but not to make them laughable. | 2; A few humorous moments, the character himself however, is not a subject of humor | 1; Generally not a humurous movie.
A burden. _____ | 3 Art, the rogue FBI agent, is generally seen struggling to handle his autism and personality as he tries to help him. Simon's perceptino of art as a stranger makes him strongly refuse to communicate with him. | 2 While Donald needs to put in a little more work to deal with the people in his life, they and donald can largely operate themselves. | 4; Charlie is seen struggling in his travels with Raymond, and is seen struggling to manage Raymond's condition. | 1; Wolff has been shown to be more than capable of handling himself.
Lives separated from mainstream society. _____ | 3 Is seen sitting away from his class. When he returns home from the bus, simon drives past children playing baseball. When he steps into his home, the scene pans back to focus on the playing kids. | 2 has a job, friends etc, but feels a slight disconnect with neurotypical society, as seen in Donald's express desire to be "normal" | 4; Raymond has been isolated from mainstream society majority of his life. | 1; Wolff creates multiple personalities and lives just to continue living in society should any identities be compromised.
Overall Scores:
Rain Man - 0.57
Mercury Rising - 0.29
Mozart and the Whale - 2.0
The Accountant - 1.667
Data Analysis:
Overall Portrayal Trend:
Off these 4 movies alone, we have a trend of an average 0.365 score increase per year. I largely expected such an outcome, just not on this specific scale. This result fits neatly with the idea that autism has grown more mainstream in recent years that I found an overwhelming consensus on in my literature review.
Subscore Trends:
More interesting than the overall portrayal is the unique changes (i.e, have they been getting more supernatural, more violent, etc). For this, we see 4 categories that have a distinct, strong pattern:
The number order indicates the scores for Rain Man, Mercury Rising, Mozart and the Whale, and The Accountant respectively.
Interacts as an equal: 3 4 5 5
Is a part of the mainstream: 1 2 4 5
A Burden: 4 3 2 1
Lives separated from mainstream society: 4 3 2 1
More interestingly, we see a few that remained largely unchanged:
Is portrayed as an ordinary person without superhuman abilities: 2 1 2 2
Sinister or Evil: 1 1 1 2
What does it all mean? Is there a takeaway?
I think more interesting than the strong changes, which show a clear view of how societal views on autism have changed being:
Neurodivergent are not lesser, but different
Neurodivergent and autism diagnoses have increased by at least 175%
Neurodivergent are not lesser, but different, and thus arent really a burden
Neurodivergent and autism diagnoses have increased by at least 175% and are a fundamental part of modern society
More worrisome however, is the unchanged statistics keeping the idea that:
1. Many on the spectrum are gifted with some sort of superhuman intelligence (yes, every single movie I have found has to do with autism has a savant; its almost annoying, since not many on the spectrum are savants)
This can be especially an issue, since not only are many non savants facing the expectations of a savant, but some on the spectrum even struggle to overcome intellectual barriers (couldn't find a better way to phrase this, I truly apologize). The last thing people need is the expectations of some supergenius capable of outperforming 2 computers, or 15 people, etc.
2. The idea that neurodivergent people cannot be sinister or evil. There seems to be a clear idea that the neurodivergent person is innocent and pure, which isn't always the case...
While I don't mean to be political, I feel one strong example of this could be Elon Musk in recent months. He is one of the most controversial figures on social media at the moment, and has stated to have Asperger's, a diagnoses on the autism spectrum.
Overall:
The major benefit to having this understanding of film portrayal, is that films and movies are one of the most easy ways to provide information to people. If these films perpetuate certain ideas, it brings rise a stereotype, which is almost always a negative thing, be it failing to meet a stereotype, or a stereotype putting one down.
It is important to understand how modern society has progressed in order to adress.