Societal expectations for social-emotional behavior differ across sexes; however, diagnostic definitions of autism do not account for this when delineating "typical" versus "atypical." This study examines sex differences in autism in one behavior associated with strong gender biases: smiling. Computer vision was used to…

The aim of the study was to investigate mathematics anxiety in autistic school-aged boys compared with non-autistic peers, by considering the distinction between trait and state components of mathematics anxiety. The study involved 110 boys aged between 8 and 16 years old: 50 autistic participants without intellectual disability and 60…

Our goal was to systematically identify, appraise and synthesise the qualitative research on parents' experiences of the autism assessment process. The empirical studies were quality appraised using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tool. We synthesised the data using a meta-synthesis approach. Parents' experiences were categorised into four…

Knowledge of autistic individuals' experiences of self-compassion is very limited. This study investigated autistic women's experiences of self-compassion after receiving their diagnosis in adulthood. Eleven autistic women completed semi-structured interviews analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three super-ordinate themes were…

Anxiety disorders commonly occur in autism. Existing studies implicate intolerance of uncertainty, alexithymia, sensory processing differences and emotion regulation difficulties as influencing factors of anxiety in autism. To date, a few studies have considered the combination of these factors within the same sample. This study used structural…

With the widespread use of masks in the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to understand how emotion recognition is affected by partial face covering. Since individuals with autism spectrum condition often tend to look at the lower half of the face, they are likely to be particularly restricted in emotion recognition by people wearing masks, since…

Autistic meltdowns have been explored from the perspectives of parents, but there is a paucity of research on the experience of meltdowns from the autistic perspective. Little is known about how adults experience these events. In this descriptive phenomenological study, we conducted online interviews with 32 autistic adults on the experience of…

Research shows significant rates of depressive symptoms in people with autistic spectrum disorder and intellectual disabilities. Finding factors related to the development of depression in autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability is necessary. Emotion regulation is associated with depression in autism spectrum disorder and intellectual…

Many autistics report being distressed by eye contact, but eye-tracking studies suggest that eye contact is associated with hypo-arousal rather than hyper-arousal in autism. Within a live face-to-face paradigm combining a wearable eye-tracker with electrodermal activity sensors, 80 adults (40 autistics) defined words in front of an experimenter…

In the present study, we sought to examine whether face recognition problems impact the social anxiety experienced by autistic people. Many autistic people -- perhaps between 15% and 30% -- exhibit severe face recognition problems that closely resemble developmental prosopagnosia. At present, however, little is known about the psychosocial…

Self-concept develops during adolescence, but little is known about self-concept in adolescents with autism. This behavioral neuroimaging study investigated (1) self-concept positivity across three domains (academic, physical appearance, and prosocial) and (2) from the perspective of self (direct self-concept) and the perceived perspective of…

Improving social communication is a frequent goal of early autism services. However, it is unclear whether existing models of social communication align with the perspectives and priorities of key stakeholders, including parents, teachers, and expert clinicians. Stakeholder perspectives on social communication characteristics and priorities for…

The alexithymia hypothesis posits that specific aspects of the autistic socio-cognitive profile, namely emotion recognition difficulties, can be explained by the increased prevalence of alexithymia in autistic populations. However, this hypothesis has largely been tested in adults. We tested whether co-occurring alexithymia could account for…

This study examined the preliminary feasibility, acceptability, and efficacy of an autism-adapted cognitive behavioral therapy for depression in autistic youth, CBT-DAY. Twenty-four autistic youth (11-17 years old) participated in the pilot non-randomized trial including 5 cisgender females, 14 cisgender males, and 5 non-binary youth. Youth…

"The Transporters" intervention contains 15 animated episodes that autistic children watch daily for a month and learn emotion recognition through stories depicting social interactions between vehicle characters with grafted human faces, expressing emotions. Its automated, home-based format is cost-effective. This study included four…