Theory of mind performance in younger and older adults with elevated autistic traits.
Older adults with high autistic traits face sharper mind-reading drops even as their trait scores fade.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Patton et al. (2020) asked adults with high autistic traits to do theory-of-mind tasks. They tested both younger and older adults to see if age makes social thinking worse.
The team used quizzes that show short stories and videos. They looked for wrong answers that hint at mind-reading problems.
What they found
Adults with lots of autistic traits scored lower on every mind-reading test. The gap stayed the same for younger and middle-aged adults.
One moving-video task showed a new twist: older adults with high traits did far worse than older adults with low traits. Age and traits together made the drop steep.
How this fits with other research
Day et al. (2021) extends this picture. They tracked the same kind of adults and saw that autistic traits actually shrink with age. So traits go down, yet social thinking can still get worse — a useful warning.
Ingersoll (2010) set the stage by linking high traits to poor non-verbal cue reading in college students. R et al. now show the problem lasts and deepens in later life.
Lancioni et al. (2009) gave us child norms for mind-reading tests. R et al. flip the lens to older adults, filling the lifespan gap.
Why it matters
If you work with middle-aged or older clients who show subtle social slips, check for broader-autism-phenotype features. A plain vocabulary test or IQ score may miss the issue. Add a quick theory-of-mind screen like a strange-stories quiz. Early clues let you add social-cognition goals before the gap widens.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Little is known about the impact of aging with Autism Spectrum Disorder on theory of mind (ToM). While ToM difficulties appear to abate with age in older autistic populations, this has yet to be explored in the Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP). The current study examined ToM performance among younger (n = 49, aged 18-46) and older adults (n = 47, aged 60-91) who were classified as on the BAP (younger n = 18; older n = 21) or not (younger n = 31; older n = 26) using the BAP Questionnaire. ToM was assessed using the ecologically valid Strange Stories Film Task (SSFT) and the dynamic Happé-Frith Triangle Animations task (TA). A 2 × 2 analysis of variance examined the effects of autistic traits (BAP vs. non-BAP) and age (young vs. old). For both SSFT and TA, results showed autistic trait main effects on task performance (non-BAP > BAP). Age main effects were observed for some but not all metrics on TA (younger better than older), with no differences in SSFT. An interaction of autistic traits and age was observed in TA Intentionality, with younger non-BAP and younger BAP performing similarly but older non-BAP performing better than older BAP. Results show that younger and older adults with elevated autistic traits show poorer ToM performance. Despite ToM difficulties being common in later life in the general population, this effect was not observed when using a ToM task designed to reflect real-world scenarios. However, results suggest that autistic traits and age could interact to increase risk for poor ToM performance in older adults who endorse elevated autistic traits. Autism Res 2020, 13: 751-762. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: The behaviors and characteristics commonly found in autism spectrum disorders have been linked to differences in understanding social situations. Similar difficulties have also been found in older age. We assessed social understanding in younger and older adults from the general population. Both younger and older adults who report more autism-like characteristics experience more difficulties with social understanding. However, few differences were found between younger and older adults.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2020 · doi:10.1002/aur.2206