Browsing by Author "Häkkinen, Milla"

The aim of this study was to examine autism as a socially constructed phenomenon. Autism is a medical diagnosis for a neurological disorder. Assesment whether an individual is autistic or not, is based on the behavior of the individual. Certain type of stereotypical behaviour is a criteria for defining physical attribute as a disorder, disability or illness. Studying autism as a socially con-structed phenomenon allocates the research to those social practices where autism is linguistically actualized and constructed. Examining autism from the viewpoint of social constructionism sets the autistic people, and those that are considered normal, in more equal positions. This is because both parties are considered to equally participate in constructing the shared reality. The methodological choices have been primarily made by recognizing them as choices based on values. Research subject and theoretical viewpoint are also choices made because of their social significance. Belief for shared responsibility and the importance of equal participation has been the theme of this thesis. Equality and universal wellbeing have been most important values that have influenced this study. The premises of social constructionism are special especially consid-ering their relationship with reality. Building on to these thoughts about reality, this thesis is seen as making reality. Discourse analysis relies to the paradigm of social constructionism, therefor it is easily and naturally utilized as part of the analysis. In this thesis discourse analysis is focused on material made by finnish union of Autism- and Asperger (Autismi- ja Aspergerliitto). about autism. The material consists of eleven interviews and it is part of a campaign that’s purpose is to spread awareness about different manifestations of autism. The theoretical viewpoint of social constructionism explains the social and lingual construction of autism as parallel sign systems where autism is seen as a social construction. In this context au-tism exists through its meanings that have been socially and linguistically attached to it. The anal-ysis gave information about the social construction of autism from the lives of autistic persons and their closest ones. Analysis showed that where autism appears there aren´t always challenges and difficulties. This means that there can only be seen a form of neurological development that does not carry inextricably certain type of problematics due to the premises of social construc-tionism where problems only exists when they are socially constructed. In this thesis, reality has been constructed by associating autism with creative possibilities that social constructionism has offered.