Abstract
Twenty-seven boys and eight girls with ASD and thirty-five controls matched for gender, age and total score intelligence were studied to ascertain whether boys and girls with ASD display stronger reactive aggression than boys and girls without ASD. Participants performed a computerized version of the Pulkkinen aggression machine that examines the intensity of reactive aggression against attackers of varying gender and age. Relative to the control group boys, the boys with ASD reacted with more serious forms of aggression when subjected to mild aggressive attacks and did not consider a child attacker’s opposite sex an inhibitory factor. The girls with ASD, on the other hand, reacted less aggressively than the girls without ASD. According to the results boys with ASD may not follow the typical development in cognitive regulation of reactive aggression.
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Acknowledgments
This study was financially supported by the European Union (The GEBACO Project), the Medical Research Fund of Tampere University Hospital, The Child Psychiatric Research Foundation (Finland) and The Emil Aaltonen Foundation. We are very grateful to all the parents and children who participated in this study and made it possible. We would also like to thank Prof. Jari K. Hietanen for helpful comments.
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The authors report no conflicts of interest.
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An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10803-017-3074-8.
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Kaartinen, M., Puura, K., Helminen, M. et al. Reactive aggression among children with and without autism spectrum disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 44, 2383–2391 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1743-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1743-1