Murphy M, Bolton P F, Pickles A, Fombonne E, Piven J, Rutter M
MRC Child Psychiatry Unit and Social, Genetic and Development Psychiatry Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, London.
Psychol Med. 2000 Nov;30(6):1411-24. doi: 10.1017/s0033291799002949.
There is substantial evidence that the genetic liability to autism confers a risk for a range of more subtle social and communication impairments, as well as stereotyped and repetitive behaviours. Recent research suggests that increased expression of particular personality traits may be a manifestation of the liability to autism.
To investigate this we examined the personality traits of the adult relatives of 99 autistic and 36 Down's syndrome probands, using the informant version of the Modified Personality Assessment Schedule.
There was significantly increased expression of the traits anxious, impulsive, aloof, shy, over-sensitive, irritable and eccentric among the autism relatives with evidence of different profiles for male and female relatives and for parents and adult children. Factor analysis revealed three broad groups of traits, two of which ('withdrawn' and 'difficult') appeared to reflect impairments in social functioning and a third group of anxiety related traits ('tense'). Each of these factors differed in their pattern of associations with the factor we termed 'withdrawn' showing a similar pattern of association to that found for other autism related conditions. The 'tense' factor appeared in part to be related to the burden of caring for an autistic child.
This study confirms the finding that particular personality traits may aggregate in the family members of autistic individuals and furthermore that some of these traits may be a manifestation of the liability to autism.
有大量证据表明，自闭症的遗传易感性会带来一系列更细微的社交和沟通障碍风险，以及刻板和重复行为。近期研究表明，特定人格特质表达的增加可能是自闭症易感性的一种表现。
为对此进行调查，我们使用修订版人格评估量表的 informant 版本，对 99 名自闭症先证者和 36 名唐氏综合征先证者的成年亲属的人格特质进行了检查。
自闭症亲属中焦虑、冲动、冷漠、害羞、过度敏感、易怒和古怪等特质的表达显著增加，且有证据表明男性和女性亲属以及父母和成年子女存在不同的特征。因子分析揭示了三大类特质，其中两类（“退缩型”和“困难型”）似乎反映了社交功能障碍，第三类是与焦虑相关的特质（“紧张型”）。这些因素中的每一个在与我们称为“退缩型”的因子的关联模式上都有所不同，显示出与其他自闭症相关病症所发现的关联模式相似。“紧张型”因子部分似乎与照顾自闭症儿童的负担有关。
本研究证实了这样的发现，即特定人格特质可能在自闭症个体的家庭成员中聚集，而且其中一些特质可能是自闭症易感性的一种表现。
