Social representations of autism

Autism is a social phenomenon as both psychological, neurological and autistic individuals are part of the society. One of the ways to understand social processes and changes is to examine how various phenomena are interpreted and circulated in everyday conversations. In this context, this study aims to examine social representations about autism. According to Moscovici (1984), social representations are patterns of meaning that are shaped in the process of social interaction and serve to meet the need of individuals to understand the world. In this context, autism is also considered as a social phenomenon built within social interactions. The participants of the research; It consists of 100 people living in Bursa, between the ages of 18-60, 42 men and 58 women. The 7-question interview form, which was prepared in accordance with the purpose of the research, was applied face to face with the participants and the recorded interviews were written. The data obtained were analyzed by thematic content analysis. As a result of the analysis; It has been observed that autism is seen as a disease/disorder, being an individual with autism is considered as a difficult and negative situation, individuals with autism are perceived as incompatible and incompatible people, autism is assumed to be mostly in boys, and there is a sense of sadness and sadness towards individuals with autism and their families. The results reveal that there is only one widespread and strong social representation for autism; "Autism as illness/disorder". It is seen that this representation is divided into two sub-representations, namely "autism as a communication problem" and "autism as a biological problem". It can be said that these shared representations are due to common sense knowledge based on social interactions rather than scientific knowledge. Keywords: autism, social representation, thematic content analysis, qualitative research