Sex differences in social and emotional insight in youth with and without autism

Autism was formally recognized by the medical community in the first half of the twentieth century. Almost 100 years later, a small but growing literature has reported sex differences in the behavioral expression of autism. Recent research has also begun to explore the internal experiences of individuals with autism, including social and emotional insight. The current study examines sex differences in language-based markers of social and emotional insight in girls and boys with autism and non-autistic peers during semi-structured clinical interviews. Sixty-four participants aged 5 to 17 years were individually matched on chronological age and full-scale IQ to form four groups: autistic girls, autistic boys, non-autistic girls, and non-autistic boys. Transcribed interviews were scored using four scales that index aspects of social and emotional insight. Results revealed the main effects of diagnosis, such that youth with autism exhibited lower insight than non-autistic youth on scales indexing social cognition and object relations, emotional investment, and social causality. With regards to sex differences, across diagnoses, girls were rated higher than boys on the social cognition and object relations, emotional investment, and social causality scales. Examined within each diagnosis separately, clear sex differences emerged: both autistic and non-autistic girls demonstrated better social cognition and understanding of social causality than boys in their respective diagnostic groups. No within-diagnosis sex differences were found on the emotional insight scales, however. These results suggest that relatively enhanced social cognition and understanding of social causality in girls may be a population-level sex difference that is preserved in autism, despite the core social challenges that characterize this condition. The current findings reveal critical new information about insight into social and emotional thinking and relationships in autistic girls versus boys that have important implications for improving identification and designing effective interventions.

Discrepancy between high non-verbal intelligence and low accuracy at reading emotional expressions in the eyes reflects the magnitude of social-emotional difficulties in autism

Many so-called "high functioning" autistic individuals struggle with daily living skills, and have poorer than expected adult outcomes in employment, relationships, and quality of life. Significant discrepancies between non-verbal intelligence and emotional processing can be observed in autism, but the role of the magnitude of this gap in achieving potential psychosocial outcome is not known. Here, we show in a large group of participants (n = 107), that only among those with an autism diagnosis (n = 33), the gap between non-verbal intelligence (as measured by Raven's matrices) and the ability to perform the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test significantly predicts self-perceived emotional/social difficulties as assessed by the Empathy Quotient. Our results suggest that it is specifically the magnitude of the gap between (high) levels of abstract reasoning skills and poor proficiency in reading emotions expressed by the eyes that predicts self-perceived difficulties in emotional and social interactions among adults with autism. A better understanding of the underlying causes of the discrepancy between potential and actual psychosocial outcomes is the first step toward developing the most appropriate support for this vulnerable population, and our study offers some potentially important insights in this regard.

Measuring advanced theory of mind: Do story-based tasks work?

INTRODUCTION

Although much is known about theory of mind (ToM) development during childhood, data on how these skills develop in adolescence is scarce. This cavity is due in part to the limited knowledge about measures of advanced theory of mind.

METHODS

The study examined the relation among six common story-based tasks designed to measure advanced ToM in two age groups of Polish adolescents: early (13-year-olds; 78 girls) and late (16-year-olds; 143 girls) adolescents.

RESULTS

Factor models for individual tasks were constructed, followed by an examination of the underlying structure that explained the variability of factor scores. Only in half of the tasks, the results revealed an age-related increase in advanced ToM. Contrary to expectation, results showed a lack of correlations among story-based advanced ToM tasks in the two adolescent groups.

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest a lack of coherence among advanced story-based ToM tasks and the need for further development of reliable and valid advanced ToM measures which are sensitive enough to show increasingly complex social reasoning abilities in adolescence.

A revised instrument for the assessment of empathy and Theory of Mind in adolescents: Introducing the EmpaToM-Y

Empathy and Theory of Mind (ToM) are two core components of social understanding. The EmpaToM is a validated social video task that allows for independent manipulation and assessment of the two capacities. First applications revealed that empathy and ToM are dissociable constructs on a neuronal as well as on a behavioral level. As the EmpaToM has been designed for the assessment of social understanding in adults, it has a high degree of complexity and comprises topics that are inadequate for minors. For this reason, we designed a new version of the EmpaToM that is especially suited to measure empathy and ToM in youths. In experiment 1, we successfully validated the EmpaToM-Y on the original EmpaToM in an adult sample (N = 61), revealing a similar pattern of results across tasks and strong correlations of all constructs. As intended, the performance measure for ToM and the control condition of the EmpaToM-Y showed reduced difficulty. In experiment 2, we tested the feasibility of the EmpaToM-Y in a group of teenagers (N = 36). Results indicate a reliable empathy induction and higher demands of ToM questions for adolescents. We provide a promising task for future research targeting inter-individual variability of socio-cognitive and socio-affective capacities as well as their precursors and outcomes in healthy minors and clinical populations.

Multivariate pattern analysis of the human pSTS: A comparison of three prototypical localizers

The posterior extent of the human superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) is an important cortical region for detecting animacy, attributing agency to others, and decoding goal-directed behavior. Theoretical accounts attribute these cognitive skills to unique neural populations that have been difficult to identify empirically (Hein and Knight, 2008). The aim of this study is to evaluate the multivariate statistical structure of pSTS activation patterns when viewing different social cues. We identified a core conjunction region on pSTS from univariate responses with preference for point-light biological motion, faces and the attribution of social concepts to simple animated shapes. In a multivariate analysis, we characterized the similarity structure of the resulting activation patterns after controlling for variance in the activation profile elicited by form and motion features. We found strong antagonistic activation profiles between the social conditions and their localizer controls, a harbinger of why these canonical localizers are so effective, even in individual subjects. We also found unique patterns of similarity between the three core social conditions. Our findings are consistent with the Shultz et al. (2015) model of pSTS function in which separate neural populations exist for animacy detection from body parts versus for extracting intentional cues from movement.

Brief Report: Do You See What I See? The Perception of Bullying in Male Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although there is evidence to suggest that adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty interpreting complex social situations, little is known about their understanding of bullying. Given the high rates of victimization in this population, it is important to investigate how adolescents with ASD comprehend bullying. Male adolescents with ASD and IQ-matched typically-developing (TD) controls (M_age = 14.62, SD = 1.91) watched six videos portraying bullying scenarios and were interviewed after each video. The interviews were coded for the participants' understanding of the bullying scenarios. Results indicated that adolescents with ASD had significantly lower bullying understanding scores than TD adolescents. These novel findings suggest that male adolescents with ASD understand bullying differently than their TD peers. Implications for experiences with victimization are discussed.

Adding sound to theory of mind: Comparing children's development of mental-state understanding in the auditory and visual realms

Theory of mind (ToM) gradually develops during the preschool years. Measures of ToM usually target visual experience, but auditory experiences also provide valuable social information. Given differences between the visual and auditory modalities (e.g., sights persist, sounds fade) and the important role environmental input plays in social-cognitive development, we asked whether modality might influence the progression of ToM development. The current study expands Wellman and Liu's ToM scale (2004) by testing 66 preschoolers using five standard visual ToM tasks and five newly crafted auditory ToM tasks. Age and gender effects were found, with 4- and 5-year-olds demonstrating greater ToM abilities than 3-year-olds and girls passing more tasks than boys; there was no significant effect of modality. Both visual and auditory tasks formed a scalable set. These results indicate that there is considerable consistency in when children are able to use visual and auditory inputs to reason about various aspects of others' mental states.

Self-awareness moderates the relation between maternal mental state language about desires and children's mental state vocabulary

In this intervention study, we tested the differential effect of talking about children's desires versus talking about others' thoughts and knowledge on children's acquisition of mental state vocabulary for children who did and did not have mirror self-recognition. In a sample of 96 mother-toddler dyads, each mother was randomly assigned a specially constructed, interactive lift-the-flap book to read to her child three times a week for 4 weeks. In the child desire condition the story elicited comments regarding the child's desires, and in the cognitive condition the story elicited the mother's comments about her own thoughts and knowledge while reading the story. Children's mirror self-recognition and mental state vocabulary were assessed at pre- and post-test. Children in the condition that focused on the child's desires showed a significantly greater increase in their mental state vocabulary; however, this effect was moderated by their levels of self-awareness, with children benefitting more from the intervention if they also showed self-recognition at pre-test. We argue that the combination of specific types of maternal talk and children's prior insights facilitates gains in children's mental state vocabulary.

Neuroanatomical and neurochemical basis of parenting: Dynamic coordination of motivational, affective and cognitive processes

This article is part of a Special Issue "Parental Care". Becoming a parent is arguably the most profound transforming experience in life. It is also inherently very emotionally and physically demanding, such that the reciprocal interaction with the young changes the brain and behavior of the parents. In this review, we examine the neurobiological mechanisms of parenting primarily discussing recent research findings in rodents and primates, especially humans. We argue that it is essential to consider parenting within a conceptual framework that recognizes the dynamics of the reciprocal mother-young relationship, including both the complexity and neuroplasticity of its underlying mechanisms. Converging research suggests that the concerted activity of a distributed network of subcortical and cortical brain structures regulates different key aspects of parenting, including the sensory analysis of infant stimuli as well as motivational, affective and cognitive processes. The interplay among these processes depends on the action of various neurotransmitters and hormones that modulate the timely and coordinated execution of caregiving responses of the maternal circuitry exquisitely attuned to the young's affect, needs and developmental stage. We conclude with a summary and a set of questions that may guide future research.

18-month-olds comprehend indirect communicative acts

From soon after their first birthdays young children are able to make inferences from a communicator's referential act (e.g., pointing to a container) to her overall social goal for communication (e.g., to inform that a searched-for toy is inside; see Behne, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2005; Behne, Liszkowski, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2012). But in such cases the inferential distance between referential act and communicative intention is still fairly close, as both container and searched-for toy lie in the direction of the pointing gesture. In the current study we tested 18- and 26-month-old children in a situation in which referential act and communicative goal were more distant: In the midst of a game, the child needed a certain toy. The experimenter then held up a key (that they knew in common ground could be used to open a container) to the child ostensively. In two control conditions the experimenter either inadvertently moved the key and so drew the child's attention to it non-ostensively or else held up the key for her own inspection intentionally but non-communicatively. Children of both ages took only the ostensive showing of the key, not the accidental moving or the non-ostensive but intentional inspection of the key, as an indirect request to take the key and open the container to retrieve the toy inside. From soon after they start acquiring language young children thus are able to infer a communicator's social goal for communication not only from directly-referential acts, but from more indirect communicative acts as well.