Social cognition, social skill, and the broad autism phenotype.
In college students, stronger autism-like traits predict weaker social thinking and poorer live chat performance.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked 140 college students to fill out a broad autism phenotype checklist.
Then each student did two live five-minute chats with a stranger.
Trained raters scored how well each student read social cues and kept the talk going.
What they found
Students who scored higher on autism-like traits also scored lower on social thinking.
Their live chats looked more awkward and less coordinated.
Social thinking explained about half of the link between traits and chat quality.
How this fits with other research
Robinson et al. (2011) built a role-play test that first showed autistic adults miss context cues.
The new study borrows that lab-chat idea and shows the same pattern shows up in typical students.
Hamama et al. (2021) found autistic adults who understand social rules still feel less dating confidence.
Together these papers hint that knowing the rules and using them smoothly are two different skills.
Lundin et al. (2019) later showed the AQ-10 screener works in large adult samples, backing the idea that autism-like traits sit on a continuum in everyone.
Why it matters
If a client seems socially off yet has no diagnosis, a quick BAP checklist plus a short live interaction can show where the snag is.
Target social-thinking drills, not just rote scripts, to bridge the gap between knowing and doing.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Social-cognitive deficits differentiate parents with the "broad autism phenotype" from non-broad autism phenotype parents more robustly than other neuropsychological features of autism, suggesting that this domain may be particularly informative for identifying genetic and brain processes associated with the phenotype. The current study examined whether the social-cognitive deficits associated with the broad autism phenotype extend to the general population and relate to reduced social skill. A total of 74 undergraduates completed the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire, three standardized social-cognitive tasks, and a live social interaction with an unfamiliar research assistant. Social broad autism phenotype traits were significantly associated with deficits in social cognition and reduced social skill. In addition, the relationship between social broad autism phenotype traits and social skill was partially mediated by social cognition, suggesting that the reduced interpersonal ability associated with the broad autism phenotype occurs in part because of poorer social-cognitive ability. Together, these findings indicate that the impairments in social cognition and social skill that characterize autism spectrum disorder extend in milder forms to the broad autism phenotype in the general population and suggest a framework for understanding how social broad autism phenotype traits may manifest in diminished social ability.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2013 · doi:10.1177/1362361312455704