Identity and Discourse Among #ActuallyAutistic Twitter Users With Motor Differences

in Journal of Motor Learning and Development

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Riya Chatterjee School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

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Nicholas E. Fears School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
School of Kinesiology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7081-0015
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Gavin Lichtenberg School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

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Priscila M. Tamplain Department of Kinesiology, The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2713-5733
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Haylie L. Miller School of Kinesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4372-1206 *
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1123/jmld.2023-0007
Keywords:
autism; social media; developmental coordination disorder; dyspraxia
First Published Online:
22 Aug 2023
In Print:
Volume 11: Issue 3
Page Range:
525–540
Restricted access

Despite a growing awareness of the prevalence of motor differences in the autistic community, their functional impact is poorly understood. Social media offers the ideal setting to observe this discourse in a less-contrived setting than lab-based structured interviews. The aims of the present study were (a) to determine the proportion of Twitter users who self-identify as autistic and dyspraxic/having developmental coordination disorder, relative to autistic alone, and (b) to identify common themes emerging from two moderated chat threads with motor-related prompts. Using the Twitter research application programming interface, we harvested data from users’ public profiles and tweets containing terms related to autism and developmental coordination disorder within a 1-month time period. We also harvested data from two #AutChat threads related to motor skills, which included 151 tweets from 31 unique autistic users (two with co-occurring developmental coordination disorder). Of these tweets, 44 were explicitly about motor differences, while the remainder consisted of discussion topics more loosely associated with motor skills. The following common themes were quantified: manual dexterity, lower extremity, oral motor, gross motor, posture, balance, stimming, movement pain, and coordination. Together, these findings indicate that motor differences are highly recognized and discussed among autistic individuals but are not overtly integrated into their identities at the same rate.

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