Sex differences in social and emotional insight in youth with and without autism
- PMID: 36871073
- PMCID: PMC9985847
- DOI: 10.1186/s13229-023-00541-w
Sex differences in social and emotional insight in youth with and without autism
Abstract
Autism was formally recognized by the medical community in the first half of the twentieth century. Almost 100 years later, a small but growing literature has reported sex differences in the behavioral expression of autism. Recent research has also begun to explore the internal experiences of individuals with autism, including social and emotional insight. The current study examines sex differences in language-based markers of social and emotional insight in girls and boys with autism and non-autistic peers during semi-structured clinical interviews. Sixty-four participants aged 5 to 17 years were individually matched on chronological age and full-scale IQ to form four groups: autistic girls, autistic boys, non-autistic girls, and non-autistic boys. Transcribed interviews were scored using four scales that index aspects of social and emotional insight. Results revealed the main effects of diagnosis, such that youth with autism exhibited lower insight than non-autistic youth on scales indexing social cognition and object relations, emotional investment, and social causality. With regards to sex differences, across diagnoses, girls were rated higher than boys on the social cognition and object relations, emotional investment, and social causality scales. Examined within each diagnosis separately, clear sex differences emerged: both autistic and non-autistic girls demonstrated better social cognition and understanding of social causality than boys in their respective diagnostic groups. No within-diagnosis sex differences were found on the emotional insight scales, however. These results suggest that relatively enhanced social cognition and understanding of social causality in girls may be a population-level sex difference that is preserved in autism, despite the core social challenges that characterize this condition. The current findings reveal critical new information about insight into social and emotional thinking and relationships in autistic girls versus boys that have important implications for improving identification and designing effective interventions.
Keywords: ASD; Emotional knowledge; Gender differences; Girls; Social understanding; Women.
© 2023. The Author(s).
Conflict of interest statement
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Figures
![Fig. 1](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/9985847/bin/13229_2023_541_Fig1_HTML.gif)
Similar articles
-
Friend matters: sex differences in social language during autism diagnostic interviews.Mol Autism. 2022 Jan 10;13(1):5. doi: 10.1186/s13229-021-00483-1. Mol Autism. 2022. PMID: 35012645 Free PMC article.
-
Sex differences in the first impressions made by girls and boys with autism.Mol Autism. 2020 Jun 16;11(1):49. doi: 10.1186/s13229-020-00336-3. Mol Autism. 2020. PMID: 32546266 Free PMC article.
-
Personal victimization experiences of autistic and non-autistic children.Mol Autism. 2022 Dec 24;13(1):51. doi: 10.1186/s13229-022-00531-4. Mol Autism. 2022. PMID: 36566252 Free PMC article.
-
Intersecting effects of sex/gender and autism on structural language: A scoping review.Autism. 2023 Oct;27(7):1876-1890. doi: 10.1177/13623613221151095. Epub 2023 Feb 3. Autism. 2023. PMID: 36737874 Review.
-
Differently different?: A commentary on the emerging social cognitive neuroscience of female autism.Biol Sex Differ. 2024 Jun 13;15(1):49. doi: 10.1186/s13293-024-00621-3. Biol Sex Differ. 2024. PMID: 38872228 Free PMC article. Review.
Cited by
-
PV and SST neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex regulate social disorders in adulthood induced by sensory abnormalities in childhood.CNS Neurosci Ther. 2024 Jul;30(7):e14863. doi: 10.1111/cns.14863. CNS Neurosci Ther. 2024. PMID: 39036868 Free PMC article.
-
The Role of Everyday Executive Function in Observed Social Symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder.J Autism Dev Disord. 2024 May 3. doi: 10.1007/s10803-024-06351-0. Online ahead of print. J Autism Dev Disord. 2024. PMID: 38700781
-
People with Autism Spectrum Disorder Could Interact More Easily with a Robot than with a Human: Reasons and Limits.Behav Sci (Basel). 2024 Feb 12;14(2):131. doi: 10.3390/bs14020131. Behav Sci (Basel). 2024. PMID: 38392485 Free PMC article. Review.
References
-
- American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [Internet]. Fifth Edition. American Psychiatric Association; 2013 [cited 2018 Aug 29]. 10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596
-
- Key Findings: CDC Releases First Estimates of the Number of Adults Living with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the United States [Internet]. 2020 Apr. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/features/adults-living-with-autism-spe...
Publication types
MeSH terms
Grants and funding
LinkOut - more resources
Full Text Sources
Medical