Objective and Subjective Measurement of Alexithymia in Adults with Autism.
Self-report and observer alexithymia scales tell different stories for the same adult with autism—pick one and stick with it.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ryan et al. (2021) asked adults with autism and neurotypical adults to fill out a self-report alexithymia form. Staff who knew the clients also rated each adult’s alexithymia on a short observer scale.
The team then compared the two scores within each group to see if they matched.
What they found
Adults with autism scored higher than neurotypical adults on both the self-report and the observer scales. Yet the two measures did not line up for the same person.
A client could look very alexithymic to staff but report few problems, or the reverse.
How this fits with other research
Griffin et al. (2016) saw the same mismatch in kids. Parents and children with autism gave very different alexithymia ratings, just like the adult staff-client split here.
Hill et al. (2004) first showed that high-functioning adults with autism report high alexithymia. Ryan et al. (2021) now adds that observer ratings agree on the group level but still diverge for individuals.
Kaiser et al. (2022) warn that most self-report tools in autism are only checked on verbally fluent youth. The new adult data echo that warning: self-report alone may mislead you.
Why it matters
If you screen for emotion-language deficits, pick one source and stay consistent. Mixing self-report with staff ratings can give conflicting baselines and muddy your treatment plan. State in your report which tool you used and why, and treat any single score as an estimate, not truth.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
High rates of alexithymia, a condition characterised by difficulties identifying and describing emotions, are frequently reported in both children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the dilemma of measuring alexithymia via self-report has rarely been addressed. In this study, we compared objective and subjective measures of alexithymia in adults with ASD and typically developing adults. We found significantly higher levels of alexithymia in the ASD sample as measured by both self-report on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and by the observer rated Alexithymia Provoked Response Scale (APRQ). However, the two measures did not correlate with each other. We explore the different facets of the alexithymia construct that these two measures may be distinguishing.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2021 · doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0984(199911/12)13:6<511::AID-PER347>3.0.CO;2-0