Evaluation of an Autism Training in a Much-Needed Context: The Case of France

Community brief Why is this an important issue?Autistic people in France have been treated very badly in the past. They have been left out of school and hurt by professionals. They still face stigma. This means they are often misunderstood, made fun of, and excluded. Some are forced to take medications they do not want. Autistic people in France have been trying to help other people in France understand autism. What was the purpose of this study?We wanted to see whether autism training could help university students in France to better understand autistic people. We wanted to see whether our training could help students appreciate autistic people more (or lower stigma). We also wanted to see whether the training could help students understand that it is important to include autistic people in classes with other students at school. What did the researchers do?Researchers in France, Lebanon, and the United States modified an autism training that had been used in other countries. The training was autistic affirming, which means it taught people to listen to autistic people and to see their strengths. We translated it into French. We included training topics that French collaborators thought were important. We asked university students in France who were studying education and psychology to do our training online. We also asked them to fill out surveys about autism. What were the results of the study?After doing our training, students knew more about autism than they did before training. Some learned that autism is part of a person for their whole life. They seemed to appreciate autistic people more after training. They also agreed that it is important to include autistic people in school with other students more than they had before. What do these findings add to what was already known?This study shows that autistic-affirming training can also help people in France appreciate autistic people. Much autism training only focuses on stigma and knowledge. Our training may also have helped future educators and clinicians understand how important it is to include autistic people in school with other students. What are potential weaknesses in the study?The students in our study were mostly women. They were all training for jobs where they can help people. We do not know whether our training would help other French people. We also cannot be sure that our training really helped the students who did it. Students may have been dishonest about how they felt about autism. In future studies, people should see whether training changes what people do, not just what they say. How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?By teaching students in France about autism, we hope to begin to help make life better for autistic people in France. We hope studies like this will help people to understand autistic people better. We also hope more people conduct trainings like that used in this study around the world to improve understanding and treatment of autistic people. Background: Autistic people in France have called for community education to reduce autism stigma. As such, training is needed to help university students appreciate autistic peers and autistic people they may work with in their future careers.Methods: We adapted an autistic-affirming training from a training developed in other cultural contexts and evaluated it with 107 university students in France using a pretest-post-test design.Results: Questionnaire responses suggested that our brief online training helped improve attitudes toward inclusion, autism knowledge, and stigma among future educators and psychologists in France. Participants' open-ended definitions of autism revealed increased alignment with the neurodiversity movement after training.Conclusions: Findings suggest that wider-scale autistic-led adaptations of autism trainings like the one described in this report could begin to ameliorate autism stigma in France.