Harvard/MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Boston, MA, USA.
Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2023 Apr;273(3):755-759. doi: 10.1007/s00406-022-01471-z. Epub 2022 Aug 18.
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.
许多所谓的“高功能”自闭症个体在日常生活技能方面存在困难，他们在就业、人际关系和生活质量方面的成年后结果不如预期。在自闭症中可以观察到非语言智力和情绪处理之间存在显著差异，但在实现潜在的心理社会结果方面，这种差距的大小的作用尚不清楚。在这里，我们在一大组参与者（n=107）中表明，只有在那些被诊断为自闭症的人中（n=33），非语言智力（如瑞文标准推理测验测量）和执行“读心测试”的能力之间的差距与自我感知的情绪/社交困难显著相关，这是通过“共情商数”评估的。我们的研究结果表明，正是（高）抽象推理技能水平和阅读眼睛表达的情绪能力之间的差距大小预测了自闭症成年人在情感和社交互动中自我感知的困难。更好地理解潜在和实际心理社会结果之间差异的根本原因是为这一脆弱群体提供最适当支持的第一步，我们的研究为此提供了一些重要的见解。
