Alexithymia and Autistic Traits: Associations With Social and Emotional Challenges Among College Students.

[en] Background: Alexithymia is a multifaceted personality construct defined by marked difficulties in identifying and describing feelings and in externally oriented thinking. Given its intrinsic role in social-emotional processing, alexithymia is now recognized as a trans-diagnostic trait in a range of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. Research has pinpointed to the co-occurrence of autism with characteristics typical of alexithymic normative samples, such as social-communication difficulties and decreased emotion regulation abilities. Nonetheless, the role of individual facets of alexithymia in predicting challenges in social communication functioning is still understudied. Methods: In total, 275 young adults completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Autism Spectrum Quotient (short form), the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire, and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale self-reported questionnaires for assessing alexithymic and autistic traits, social-communication abilities, and emotion regulation difficulties. We used regression models to establish cross-sectional associations between autism, alexithymia, and social-emotional difficulties. Also, we ran a parallel mediation analysis to determine whether the relationship between autistic traits and emotion regulations challenges are mediated by Alexithymia facets. Results: Analysis showed a significant positive association between autistic traits and alexithymic traits and between autistic traits and emotion regulation difficulties while, as expected, autistic traits were negatively correlated with social skills. A significant relationship was found among the participants' levels of alexithymia and their interpersonal skills with two of three alexithymic subscales significantly contributing to the model. Similarly, a significant relationship was found among alexithymia subscales and emotion regulation difficulties with all three alexithymia subscales being statistically significant. Finally, analysis on two mediator models indicated a significant effect of autistic traits on social skills mediated by alexithymic traits as well as a significant indirect effect of autistic traits on emotion regulation difficulties mediated by alexithymic traits. Conclusion: The results of this study provide evidence of the influence of different alexithymic facets on the relationship between autistic traits and social-emotional challenges in young adults. Longitudinal studies may explore further alexithymia and its associations with social-emotional difficulties in autism as well as the potential implications of these findings in intervention and treatment programs.

Disciplines :

Social & behavioral sciences, psychology: Multidisciplinary, general & others

Author, co-author :

VAIOULI, Potheini ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Humanities (DHUM) > Multilingualism ; Department of Psychology, Center for Applied Neuroscience, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

Panayiotou, Georgia; Department of Psychology, Center for Applied Neuroscience, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus

External co-authors :

yes

Language :

English

Title :

Alexithymia and Autistic Traits: Associations With Social and Emotional Challenges Among College Students.

Publication date :

2021

Journal title :

Frontiers in Neuroscience

ISSN :

1662-4548

eISSN :

1662-453X

Publisher :

Frontiers Media S.A., Switzerland

Volume :

Pages :

733775

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2021.733775/full

Available on ORBilu :

since 08 August 2024

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