Age differences in broader autism phenotype traits from young adulthood to older adulthood.
Autism-like quirks in the general public shrink with age, especially the social-language slips.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers gave an online survey to the adults with no autism diagnosis. They asked about social quirks, rigid habits, and language slips that sit just below the clinical line.
The group ranged from 18 to 70 years old. The team split them into young, middle, and older adults to see if these mild traits fade with age.
What they found
Every autism-like trait dropped as age went up. The biggest slide was in pragmatic language—things like missing jokes or taking things too literally.
Older adults scored 30 % lower on these language items than the youngest group. The change was steady, not sudden, across the adult years.
How this fits with other research
Sutherland et al. (2017) showed that toddlers with small vocabularies grow into adults with slightly higher autistic-trait scores. Day et al. (2021) now complete the arc: once adulthood starts, those same traits taper off.
Diemer et al. (2023) tracked diagnosed autistic people for ten years and also saw aggression fall with age. The two studies look opposite—one in neurotypical adults, one in autistic clients—but both show autism-linked behaviors softening as people get older.
Helland et al. (2014) found that childhood behavior problems lock in pragmatic language deficits. The new survey hints these problems may peak in early adulthood and then loosen, giving clinicians a possible window for language-rich therapy.
Why it matters
If you screen adults for BAP traits, expect lower scores in clients over 40. Do not rule out autism based on age alone, but do weigh the fading pragmatic gap when you plan social-skills goals. For middle-aged clients, brief language coaching or workplace pragmatics groups may be enough to close the remaining distance.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Much of past research has been dedicated to refining the operationalization and correlates of the broader autism phenotype (BAP) and less on how the BAP differs by socio-demographic characteristics, like age-particularly after midlife. This gap is important because other nonclinical trait-like characteristics (e.g., personality) have shown considerable age differences, leading to work assessing the malleability of psychological characteristics and improving outcomes for individuals and their significant others. In the current study, we examined cross-sectional age differences in the BAP in a large sample of adults ranging in age from 18 to 85. We recruited a sample of 2966 adults ranging in age from 18 to 85 (Mage = 36.53, SD = 12.61; 58.9% Female; 1.1% with an ASD diagnosis) recruited from an online survey service. We found that total BAP scores were higher in younger adults and lower among older adults. These differences were particularly true for pragmatic language difficulties, with this component of the BAP showing the most dramatic age differences. Aloofness showed similar negative associations with age, albeit much smaller. Rigidity was not significantly associated with age. The results are consistent with other research showing an abatement of symptoms among individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) across early life and theories predicting changes in other psychological characteristics (e.g., personality). The results are discussed in the context of the malleability of ASD and BAP traits across life, the clinical implications of these changes, and the origins and consequences for lifespan differences in BAP. LAY SUMMARY: Little is known about how subclinical autistic-like traits among middle-aged and older adults compare to younger adults. We found that these subclinical traits were highest in young adults and lowest in older adults. Knowing how these traits differ by age can provide researchers and clinicians with a sense of how much these traits might change across life, if the traits might be sensitive to interventions, and when in development it might be best to intervene.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2021 · doi:10.1002/aur.2504