Personality Pathology of Adults With Autism Spectrum Disorder Without Accompanying Intellectual Impairment in Comparison to Adults With Personality Disorders.
Autistic adults without ID display a unique shy, rigid personality profile, not the dramatic swings seen in personality disorders.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Strunz et al. (2015) compared personality traits in three adult groups.
Group one had autism without intellectual disability.
Group two had personality disorders.
Group three were typical adults.
They used standard personality tests to map each profile.
What they found
Autistic adults scored lower on extraversion and openness.
They scored higher on inhibited and compulsive traits.
These patterns were different from both personality-disorder and typical groups.
How this fits with other research
Badia et al. (2013) saw similar tight, anxious styles in autistic youth without ID.
Totsika et al. (2010) and McCarthy et al. (2010) looked at autistic adults who also had ID.
Those studies found no extra personality risk once adaptive skills were counted.
The difference is IQ: when ID is absent, distinct personality traits show up.
Sasson et al. (2018) added that these same adults often do not know how others view them.
Why it matters
If you assess verbally fluent adults with ASD, expect a reserved, rigid style rather than classic personality-disorder signs.
Tailor social-skills goals to their low extraversion and desire for sameness.
Also check if they understand how they come across—meta-perception may need teaching too.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Differentiating autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) without accompanying intellectual impairment from personality disorders is often challenging. Identifying personality traits and personality pathology specific to ASD might facilitate diagnostic procedure. We recruited a sample of 59 adults with ASD without accompanying intellectual impairment, 62 individuals with narcissistic personality disorder, 80 individuals with borderline personality disorder, and 106 nonclinical controls. Personality traits, measured with the neo-personality inventory-revised (NEO-PI-R), and personality pathology, measured with the dimensional assessment of personality pathology (DAPP-BQ), were assessed. Personality traits and personality pathology specific to ASD could be identified. ASD individuals scored significantly lower on the NEO-PI-R scales extraversion and openness to experience and significantly higher on the DAPP-BQ scales inhibitedness and compulsivity relative to all other groups. Diagnostic implications are discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2015 · doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2183-x