Kimberly Schreck studies evidence-based treatments to help children on the autism spectrum. The psychology professor at Penn State Harrisburg wishes the media would do the same on a more regular basis. “Autism is a hot topic,” she says, “but nobody is reporting on it accurately.”
In 2016, Schreck and a team of grad students studied how mentions of autism on major television news networks were conceptualized. Beginning in 2022, with the help of a $7,000 grant from the News Literacy Initiative, she and students from Penn State Harrisburg’s applied behavior and analysis and psychology programs—Jonathon Lyon, Samara Wilson ’23 Lib Hbg, and Julia Leslie ’21 Lib Hbg—extended that study, winding up with a set of media mentions from 2000 to 2022. They discovered that the ratio of mentions of non-scientifically approved autism treatments to evidence-based treatments—whether positive or negative—was roughly 90:10 in that period, and that the gap was worsening.
The non-scientific mentions included anecdotal stories about children experiencing changes in autistic behavior from looking at Christmas lights or from playing sports, while others mentioned dangerous tactics such as bleach therapy. While they might have made for compelling stories, Schreck says, those reports have often done more harm than good. Researchers also found that transcripts of those reports would show up verbatim on multiple networks. “I hear a lot of wanting to give hope and to give something to parents who are desperately searching for help,” Schreck says. “But [reporters] are not doing their due diligence to figuring out what that is.”
Three other Penn State Harrisburg professors—Daniel Mallinson and Eric Best in the School of Public Affairs and Nahko Kim in the School of Humanities—received similar grants for news literacy– related topics as part of the initiative’s pilot program. Schreck says the experience has made her consider potential solutions to help the spread of science-based treatments, and that future grants might come in the realm of public policy. She remains pleasantly surprised to have found an opportunity to expand her previous studies through the News Literacy Initiative. “I’ve never seen a grant that would match to doing this kind of research,” Schreck says. “It didn’t exist.”
