Alexithymia in children with and without autism spectrum disorders.

The team asked kids with and without autism about their own feelings. They also asked parents the same questions. They wanted to see who had more trouble naming emotions.

They used two short paper checklists. One went to the child. One went to the parent. No one got any training or therapy.

Kids with autism scored much higher on alexithymia. That means they had a harder time saying what they felt.

Parents of autistic kids also gave high scores. But parent and child answers did not match. The bigger the gap, the more autistic traits the child showed.

Ryan et al. (2021) saw the same rater gap in adults. Self-ratings and observer-ratings still did not line up. This shows the mismatch is not just a kid problem.

Fleury et al. (2019) went one step further. They showed the gap matters for daily life. When alexithymia is high, parents talk and play less with their kids.

Vaiouli et al. (2022) checked every past paper. They say most tools for alexithymia are weak. So the mismatch Griffin et al. (2016) found may be partly due to poor questions, not just poor insight.

McCauley et al. (2018) found a body-based reason. Autistic people with high alexithymia feel heart rate and gut signals less clearly. This helps explain why self-ratings feel off to observers.

Always collect both self and parent reports, then look at the gap. A big gap is a red flag for stronger autistic traits and later emotion-regulation trouble. Use simple feeling words, body cues, and visual scales instead of long questionnaires. Start teaching emotion naming early; the rater gap shows kids may not even know they need the skill.