Bella Kofner's research while affiliated with City University of New York - College of Staten Island and other places

... Depression is often characterized by excessive pessimism toward external matters, which can trigger worry or even panic. Moreover, long-term experiences of insecurity can negatively impact mental health, leading to increased negativity and suppression (49). Hence, there may be a strong correlation between depression and sense of security. ...

... Another limitation of the study is that we did not assess whether for university educators (Waisman et al., 2022). Future work should examine if benefits of training also maintain for students and if they lead to measurable changes in observed behaviors towards autistic people rather than just self-reported attitudes. ...

... Notably, learning that one is autistic can be a source of empowerment, allowing the autistic person to better understand themselves and adopt strategies for everyday life. 37,38 This reflects the voice of participants in our study where following their diagnosis, they better understood what their support needs were and how to manage them in their living situation. ...

... Content analysis was selected to analyze patterns found in the open-ended questions and to allow the research team to identify and compare the barriers and enablers experienced by women during the career journeys. This approach allows for the coding of raw text into selected classification schemes and has been frequently used by qualitative researchers to derive meanings from texts concerning career motivations (e.g., Kondracki et al., 2002;Cheriyan et al., 2021). The content analysis for this study was conducted by the researchers using NVIVO on a secure and anonymized basis. ...

... Online and scalable training curricula not only increase knowledge of autism, but also diminish stigma toward autism, among both students 35 and faculty. 36 Thus, neurodiversity trainings could foster more inclusive attitudes toward neurodiversity on campuses. While the effectiveness of diversity training in general has been questioned, 37 members of campus communities often have limited knowledge and understanding of neurodivergent students and their needs, 5,38-43 let alone prior exposure to narratives aligned with the neurodiversity movement. ...

... Considering the impact of misinformation on public stigma toward mental illness (Thornicroft et al., 2022), not all forms of knowledge, but specifically knowledge that addresses and corrects stereotypes about autism may have the potential to reduce stigma. Some interventions have been reported to reduce some forms of stigma (e.g., desired social distance, Gillespie-Lynch et al., 2015; first impressions of an autistic person, implicit attitudes;Gillespie-Lynch et al., 2022), while others did not induce significant changes (e.g., implicit attitudes; Dickter et al., 2021; willingness to engage in academic, recreational, or social activities with an autistic peer; Swaim et al., 2001). Some impact knowledge and attitudes but do not impact intentions to actually interact with autistic people (e.g., Staniland & Byrne, 2013). ...

... Although the idea of neurodiversity has been adopted to varying degrees by other disability communities: for example, stuttering, dyslexia, mood disorders, anxiety, ADHD, intellectual and learning disabilities, and schizophrenia, who should be included within the neurodiversity movement remains highly contested (e.g., Chapman & Veit, 2020;Gillespie-Lynch et al., 2020). Ongoing debates about who the neurodiversity movement represents demonstrate the immense assumptions that go into attempting to make identity categories more homogenous. ...

... We found that the autism knowledge video created was successful in increasing knowledge about autism in a general population sample. These results align with prior research that suggests autism awareness interventions are effective (e.g., Gillespie-Lynch et al., 2015;Gillespie-Lynch, 2021;Harrison et al., 2016;Jones et al., 2021). This study adds to the current literature by demonstrating that a brief informational video may also be effective at increasing autism knowledge, which differs from prior research that used other methods such as PowerPoint presentations. ...

... Alongside the question of what the word neurodiversity means is the even more crucial question of who it applies to. Though neurodiversity has its origins in the world of autism, it has important implications outside of it as well (Bertilsdotter Rosqvist et al., 2020;Gillespie-Lynch et al., 2020). As Botha and Gillespie-Lynch (2022) note, in various contexts, conditions like ADHD, dyslexia, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, intellectual disability, and many others have been asserted to fall under the neurodiversity umbrella. ...

... Indeed, the gendered stereotypes of females that are often in direct contrast to autistic characteristics and popularized theoretical accounts of autism as a masculinized condition, few have directly tested this relation. However it is essential to assess the views of the general population as although attitudes towards autism may be improving [65], stigma remains common [66], and individuals' biases towards autism can often contribute to personal and professional challenges for autistic people [67]. This population-based study explores whether gender biases the perception of autism on implicit and explicit measures. ...