Autism spectrum disorder and the narrative experiences of women on Instagram

Abstract

The aim of the present article was to analyze how autistic women share their personal online experiences on Instagram drawing on the theory of social representations, which are sustained by social media influence. The corpus consisted of the Instagram profiles of three women on the autism spectrum, which they used to share their experiences (“autiefeelings”, “autista_adulta”, and “euautista_”), and the reception of and interaction generated by the comments. The following methodological procedures were used: social representations, image content analysis, and discourse analysis. The results reveal the presence of the perspective of neurodiversity, which views atypical neurological development and states as normal, and a variety of emotional expressions and symptom representations. The comments demonstrated both primary and secondary identification with posts.