TABLE 3.

Themes and subthemes within open-ended responses for autism labels, with text examples.

Theme	Subtheme	Quoted example from responses
Perceived severity	Severe disability	“A person whose mental ability is limited and they rather depend on their parents.”
	Minimal disability	“I think of a disorder that a person is born with. It doesn’t mean that the person is less intelligent or strange. It just means that their brains make connections differently than most people’s do.”
	Range of presentations	“A spectrum of disability that mostly deals with communication skills, but also impacts other aspects of life. Can be incredibly mild, or require life-long care.”
Symptoms or features	Social difficulties	“When I hear the word “autistic,” I generally tend to think of people who have a hard time connecting to other people in a permanent fashion. They want to create bonds with other people but just don’t know how to create and maintain these relationships”
	RRBIs	“I believe each person with autism has unique characteristics where they can fixate on one thing or have a specified routine everyday. it does not seem that they like change”
	Emotion and behavior dysregulation	“Cannot understand their own inward emotions from time-to-time and act on them appropriately. This may make the autistic person seem a bit impulsive or compulsive”
	Speech and communication difficulties	“Disorder that doesn’t allow you to process or communicate the same way others do.”
	Savant syndrome	“Have extraordinary memory about what they did or saw (such as immediately memorizing road signs or car types or people’s names with faces).”
Attitudes toward autism	Exclusionary attitudes	“They seem to be more social but tend to not be always be wanted in social setting. They make people feel uneasy and not comfortable to be around”
	Patronizing attitudes	“Wants to be accepted and loved. But doesn’t understand how to be accepted. Someone who wants to be just like everyone else.”
	Autism acceptance	“I don’t subscribe to the harmful stigmas associated with autism nor am I very fond of them, mostly because they dehumanize individuals who, at the end of the day, are human. Yes, their cognitive processes may be different, but that doesn’t necessarily make them any less intelligent or any more piteous than people without autism.”
Representations of autism	Personal contact	“I think of two people from high school, one whom I was great friends with, and one that was seen as an outcast of sorts.”
	Media	“The famous woman who is autistic who was known for building the cattle processing machine that became something used nationwide in many farms.”