Centre d'Evaluation et Diagnostic de l'Autisme (CEDA), Centre Hospitalier Le Vinatier, Bron, France.
Roche Innovation Center, F-Hoffmann La Roche Ldt, Basel, Switzerland.
Autism Res. 2021 Feb;14(2):380-388. doi: 10.1002/aur.2390. Epub 2020 Sep 15.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are heterogeneous and complex neurodevelopmental conditions that urgently need reliable and sensitive measures to inform diagnosis properly. The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task (or Eyes Test from now on) is widely used for this purpose. A recent study showed that subcategories of items of the children version of the Eyes Test could be especially discriminative to distinguish ASD and control children. Here, we analyzed the performance on the Eyes Test of 30 high functioning (IQ > 70) adults with ASD and 29 controls from the InFoR cohort multicentric study, using a Generalized Linear Mixed Model. We found that valence and difficulty modulate the performance on the Eyes Test, with easy and positive items being the most discriminative to distinguish ASD and controls. In particular, we suggest this result might be actionable to discriminate ASD patients from controls in subgroups where their overall scores show less difference with controls. We propose for future research the computation of two additional indexes when using the Eyes Test: the first focusing on the easy and positive items (applying a threshold of 70% of correct responses for these items, above which people are at very low risk of having ASD) and the second focusing on the performance gain from difficult to easy items (with a progression of less than 15% showing high risk of having ASD). Our findings open the possibility for a major change in how the Eyes Test is used to inform diagnosis in ASD. LAY SUMMARY: The Eyes Test is used worldwide to inform autism spectrum disorders (ASD) diagnosis. We show here that ASD and neurotypical adults show the most difference in performance on subgroups of items: ASD adults do not improve as expected when comparing easy and difficult items, and they do not show an improvement for items displaying a positive feeling. We advise clinicians to focus on these comparisons to increase the property of the test to distinguish people with ASD from neurotypical adults.
自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)是一种异质性和复杂性的神经发育障碍,迫切需要可靠和敏感的措施来进行正确诊断。阅读眼睛任务(或从现在起称为眼睛测试)被广泛用于此目的。最近的一项研究表明,儿童版眼睛测试的项目子类别可以特别具有区分力,以区分 ASD 和对照组儿童。在这里,我们使用广义线性混合模型分析了来自 InFoR 队列多中心研究的 30 名高功能(IQ>70)ASD 成人和 29 名对照组的眼睛测试表现。我们发现效价和难度调节了眼睛测试的表现,简单和积极的项目是最具区分力的,可以区分 ASD 和对照组。特别是,我们认为,当使用眼睛测试时,这一结果可能会有助于区分亚组中 ASD 患者和对照组,在这些亚组中,他们的总分与对照组的差异较小。我们建议在未来的研究中计算眼睛测试的两个额外指标:第一个指标集中在简单和积极的项目上(对于这些项目,将 70%的正确反应作为阈值,低于此阈值的人患 ASD 的风险非常低),第二个指标集中在从困难到容易项目的表现增益上(进展低于 15%表明患 ASD 的风险很高)。我们的发现为如何使用眼睛测试来为 ASD 诊断提供信息提供了重大改变的可能性。
自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)是一种异质性和复杂性的神经发育障碍,迫切需要可靠和敏感的措施来进行正确诊断。阅读眼睛任务(或从现在起称为眼睛测试)被广泛用于此目的。最近的一项研究表明,儿童版眼睛测试的项目子类别可以特别具有区分力,以区分 ASD 和对照组儿童。在这里,我们使用广义线性混合模型分析了来自 InFoR 队列多中心研究的 30 名高功能(IQ>70)ASD 成人和 29 名对照组的眼睛测试表现。我们发现效价和难度调节了眼睛测试的表现,简单和积极的项目是最具区分力的,可以区分 ASD 和对照组。特别是,我们认为,当使用眼睛测试时,这一结果可能会有助于区分亚组中 ASD 患者和对照组,在这些亚组中,他们的总分与对照组的差异较小。我们建议在未来的研究中计算眼睛测试的两个额外指标:第一个指标集中在简单和积极的项目上(对于这些项目,将 70%的正确反应作为阈值,低于此阈值的人患 ASD 的风险非常低),第二个指标集中在从困难到容易项目的表现增益上(进展低于 15%表明患 ASD 的风险很高)。我们的发现为如何使用眼睛测试来为 ASD 诊断提供信息提供了重大改变的可能性。