An Investigation of Behavioural and Self-Reported Cognitive Empathy Deficits in Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorders and Adolescents With Behavioural Difficulties

© 2021 Vilas, Reniers and Ludlow. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Deficits in empathy have been considered hallmarks in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) but are also considered to underlie antisocial behaviour associated with individuals with callous unemotional traits (CU). Research has suggested that individuals with autism spectrum disorders show more difficulties with cognitive empathy, and that individuals diagnosed with behaviours difficulties, characterised by CU traits and antisocial behaviour, demonstrate low affective empathy. In the current manuscript we present findings of two studies. The first study describes the validation of a new stimulus set developed for the empathic accuracy task, focused on its cognitive component. The second study compares the performance of 27 adolescents with ASD, 27 age matched typically developing adolescents and 17 adolescents with behavioural difficulties on the empathic accuracy task and a self-report measure of empathy. While, no differences were observed between the three groups across the empathy accuracy task, the adolescents with ASD and CD showed deficits in their cognitive empathy across the self-report measure. Adolescents with ASD showed lower scores in particularly their perspective taking abilities, whereas the adolescences with behavioural difficulties showed more difficulties with their online simulation. No differences in self-reported affective empathy across the three groups were observed. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Depressive and socially anxious symptoms, psychosocial maturity, and risk perception: Associations with risk-taking behaviour.

Risk-taking behaviour and onset of mental illness peak in adolescence and young adulthood. This study evaluated the interconnectedness of the domains of risk-taking behaviour, mental health (symptoms of depression and social anxiety), psychosocial maturity, risk perception, age, and gender in a sample of 306 adolescents and young adults. Participants between the ages of 16 and 35 completed online self-report measures assessing risk-taking behaviour, depressive symptoms, socially anxious symptoms, psychosocial maturity and risk perception. Socially anxious symptoms, psychosocial maturity, and risk perception were directly associated with risk-taking behaviour. Correlations between depressive symptoms, socially anxious symptoms, and psychosocial maturity were found. Psychosocial maturity proved a better predictor of risk-taking behaviour than age in this cohort. The findings indicate that mental health impacts upon risk-taking behaviour and that consideration should be given to psychosocial maturity in attempts to reduce adolescent and young adult risk-taking behaviour

Adding a Dimension to the Dichotomy: Affective Processes Are Implicated in the Relationship Between Autistic and Schizotypal Traits

Introduction: There is a recognized increase in vulnerability to psychosis in autistic people (AP). However, the construct of psychosis (particularly schizophrenia) contains several distinct factors, making understanding the relationship between autism and psychosis complex. Previous research has suggested that affective lability may be particularly related to psychotic experiences for AP who have experienced psychosis (AP-P). There is also a suggestion that psychosis might be a state of extreme (over)empathizing, perhaps related to emotional processes. Method: We recruited three groups: AP-P (N = 23), a group of AP who had not experienced psychosis (AP-NP; N = 59) and a neurotypical control group (NC, N = 41). Participants completed measures of autistic traits, schizotypal traits (as a proxy for psychosis-proneness), emotional processes, and perspective taking (as a proxy for the type of empathizing most theoretically likely to be linked to psychosis). As well as comparisons between groups, regression analyses were used to understand the influence of dependent variables on schizotypal traits. Results: We found that AP-P had significantly higher rates of schizotypy (positive and disorganized), as well as higher rates of emotional difficulties. Across all groups, affective lability had a positive and significant association with positive and disorganized schizotypal traits. Differences in perspective taking between groups were small and generally non-significant, particularly in adjusted comparisons; additionally, its impact on schizotypy was small and non-significant. Discussion: Our findings suggest that positive and disorganized schizotypy, in particular, have a relationship with affective lability. This, in turn, supports the idea of emotional processes as related to the development of schizotypal traits and psychosis across all individuals, regardless of autism diagnostic status. We found no evidence of empathy relating to any subscale of schizotypy, or the total schizotypy score. We contend that emotional processes should be considered in exploration of the relationship between autism and schizotypy in future. This may help to explain some of the findings of overlap between these constructs in previous research. Factors known to affect neurodevelopment of emotion systems such as history of early trauma, challenges during pregnancy and birth, and early childhood experiences of adversity during critical windows of development need further consideration in future research

Goodness of fit tests and indices.

<p>Goodness of fit tests and indices.</p

Standardised indirect and total effects for predicting risk-taking behaviour.

<p>Standardised indirect and total effects for predicting risk-taking behaviour.</p

Path model exploring the relationship between risk perception, risk-taking behaviour, age, and personality characteristics.

<p>* <i>p</i><0.05; ** <i>p<</i>0.01; *** <i>p</i><0.001. Boxes represent observed variables. Long, solid arrows represent regressions. Short arrows represent residual error variances that indicate the variation left unexplained by the variables in the path model. Numbers indicate the standardised regression weights and R² indicates the amount of variance explained by the model.</p

Sample characteristics.

<p>Sample characteristics.</p

Does cortical brain morphology act as a mediator between childhood trauma and transition to psychosis in young individuals at ultra-high risk?

Background Childhood trauma, particularly sexual abuse, has been associated with transition to psychosis in individuals at “ultra-high risk” (UHR). This study investigated whether the effects of various forms of childhood trauma on transition to psychosis are mediated by cortical thickness and surface area abnormalities. Methods This prospective study used data from 62 UHR individuals from a previous (PACE 400) cohort study. At follow-up, 24 individuals had transitioned to psychosis (UHR-T) and 38 individuals had not transitioned (UHR-NT). Student-t/Mann-Whitney-U tests were performed to assess morphological differences in childhood trauma (low/high) and transition. Mediation analyses were conducted using regression and bootstrapping techniques. Results UHR individuals with high sexual trauma histories presented with decreased cortical thickness in bilateral middle temporal gyri and the left superior frontal gyrus compared to those with low sexual trauma. Participants with high physical abuse had increased cortical thickness in the right middle frontal gyrus compared to those with low physical abuse. No differences were found for emotional abuse or physical/emotional neglect. Reduced cortical thickness in the right middle temporal gyrus and increased surface area in the right cingulate were found in UHR-T compared to UHR-NT individuals. Sexual abuse had an indirect effect on transition to psychosis, where decreased cortical thickness in the right middle temporal gyrus was a mediator. Conclusions Results suggest that childhood sexual abuse negatively impacted on cortical development of the right temporal gyrus, and this heightened the risk of transition to psychosis in our sample. Further longitudinal studies are needed to precisely understand this link