Several measures have been developed to assess loneliness in the general population. Here, we examined if, and how accurately, widely-used measures capture the experience of loneliness in autistic adults. A total of 203 autistic participants from the UK completed an online survey, which included two widely-used loneliness questionnaires: the…

Deception is a multi-faceted social behaviour that is pervasive in human communication. Due to differences in social communication and experiences, autistic and non-autistic adults may contrast in how they respond to situations that elicit deceptive decision-making. This study examined whether autistic and non-autistic adults differed in their…

Object personification is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human agents. In online forums, autistic individuals commonly report experiencing this phenomenon. Given that approximately half of all autistic individuals experience difficulties identifying their own emotions, the suggestion that object personification may be a feature of…

Rumination has a large direct effect on psychopathology but has received relatively little attention in autism spectrum disorder despite the propensity to perseverate in this population. This study provided initial evidence that adolescents with autism spectrum disorder self-report more anger-focused rumination than typically developing controls,…

The understanding of emotions based on counterfactual reasoning was studied in children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders ("n" = 71) and in typically developing children ("n" = 71), aged 6-12 years. Children were presented with eight stories about two protagonists who experienced the same positive or negative…

Problem-solving skills training is an intervention designed to teach coping skills that has shown to decrease negative affectivity (depressive symptoms, negative mood, and post-traumatic stress symptoms) in mothers of children with cancer. The objective of this study was to see whether mothers of children recently diagnosed with autism spectrum…

Autism spectrum disorders are characterised by impairments in communication and social interaction. Social skills interventions have been found to ameliorate socio-communication deficits in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. Little is known about the effectiveness of social skills interventions for adults with…

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between explicit and implicit forms of Theory of Mind reasoning and to test the influence of experience on implicit Theory of Mind reasoning in individuals with autism spectrum disorders and in neurotypical adults. Results from two standard explicit Theory of Mind tasks are mixed: Individuals with…

Compared to the general pediatric population, children with autism have higher rates of co-occurring medical and psychiatric illnesses, yet very little is known about the general health status of adults with autism. The objective of this study was to describe the frequency of psychiatric and medical conditions among a large, diverse, insured…

Autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder overlap in several ways, raising questions about the nature of this comorbidity. Rommelse et al. published an innovative review of candidate endophenotypes for autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in cognitive and brain domains. They found that…

Autobiographical memory difficulties have been widely reported in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The aim of the current study was to explore the potential correlates of autobiographical memory performance (including depressed mood, rumination, working memory and theory of mind) in adults with ASD, relative to a group of typical adults…

This study reports on a new false belief measure in a sample of 124 children and adolescents with or without high functioning autism (HFASD). In the classic paradigm, a participant predicts in which of two discrete locations a deceived protagonist will look for an object. In the current Sandbox task, the object is buried and reburied in a sandbox,…

We compared the capacity of children, adolescents and adults with and without autism to use (a) intent and severity of consequences information for attributing blame to an offender, and (b) intent and apologies information for inferring willingness to forgive. Participants were presented with two sets of six scenarios obtained by combination of…

Aim: To determine the effect of parent education on adaptive behaviour, autism symptoms and cognitive/language skills of young children with autistic disorder. Method: A randomised group comparison design involving a parent education and counselling intervention and a parent education and behaviour management intervention to control for parent…

From the 1970s on, case studies reported the effectiveness of therapeutic mirroring in movement with children with autism spectrum disorder. In this feasibility study, we tested a dance movement therapy intervention based on mirroring in movement in a population of 31 young adults with autism spectrum disorder (mainly high-functioning and…