Autism traits outweigh alexithymia traits in the explanation of mentalising performance in adults with autism but not in adults with rejected autism diagnosis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Pronounced alexithymia traits have been found in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and recent research has been carving out the impact alexithymia traits might have on mentalising deficits associated with ASD.

Method

In this cross-sectional study, a large representative referral population for diagnostic examination for possible ASD (n = 400) was screened for clinical alexithymia with a German version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test (RME). In contrast to previous attempts to carve out the impact of alexithymia traits on mentalising deficits though, we employed dominance analysis to account for the correlation between predictors. The relative relationship between alexithymia traits and autism traits with RME performance was investigated in the group of indivi

SUBMITTER: Falter-Wagner CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9264711 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature