Quantitative Analysis of Narrative Discourse by Autistic Adults of Underrepresented Genders

BACKGROUND: Narrative production is an important part of the diagnostic process for autism. Most existing research on narrative production by autistic people has focused on cisgender men and boys. Members of other genders (i.e., nonbinary people, transgender men, and trans and cisgender women) are underrepresented in the research literature. Research with non-autistic adults consistently reports gender differences in narrative production. When adults whose genders are underrepresented seek autism diagnosis as adults, they may be misdiagnosed due to misconceptions about autistic communication that are based on cisgender male speakers.

METHODS: Twenty autistic adults of various genders each told four narratives: two based on a picture and two about their personal experiences. Dependent variables measured narrative length, grammatical complexity, vocabulary diversity, filled pauses, and internal state terms. Researchers used nonparametric statistics to compare groups of (1) cisgender men and all other participants, (2) participants assigned male at birth and those assigned female, and (3) self-identified women, nonbinary people, and men.

RESULTS: Women used significantly less diverse vocabulary than men. Women used more terms to refer to internal states than both nonbinary people and men, but this finding was not significant after correction for multiple comparisons. All other comparisons were not statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS: Autistic narrators of diverse genders have more linguistic similarities than differences. Autistic women may be more likely to talk about emotions and other internal states than autistic men. Gender-based expectations for spoken communication about internal states should be carefully reconsidered. More research is necessary to determine whether the results of this small study will generalize to larger samples of autistic people whose genders are currently underrepresented in the research literature.