A comparison of the trait emotional intelligence profiles of individuals with and without Asperger syndrome.

Petrides et al. (2011) gave adults with Asperger syndrome a paper-and-pencil test called the TEIQue.

The test asks how well people handle their own feelings and read other people’s moods.

A same-age group without autism took the same test for comparison.

The Asperger group scored lower on almost every part of the test.

The gaps were medium to large, meaning the difference was easy to see, not just luck.

Fullana et al. (2007) seems to disagree. They showed kids with Asperger’s could read faces and voices as well as typical kids.

The clash clears up when you see A et al. left out kids who also had high-functioning autism. Kv et al. kept the wider ASD label, so their group had more social-cognitive trouble.

Heald et al. (2020) backs the idea that emotion problems start early. Preschoolers with ASD already had poor emotion regulation, and that led to worse play skills and more behavior issues.

Fong et al. (2020) adds a next step. In school-age kids, weak self-monitoring predicted social gaps. Put together, the four papers draw a line: early emotion-regulation issues grow into the broad trait-EI deficits Kv et al. captured in adults.

If you write social-skills goals, add emotion-regulation and self-monitoring targets, not just greeting scripts. Start young, keep going, and check progress with tools like the TEIQue in adolescence to see if real-life skills are catching up.