Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are characterized by reduced pain empathy--a process that is grounded in first-hand pain perception. Because autistic traits are continuously distributed in the general population, we hypothesized that first-hand pain sensitivity would mediate the link between autistic traits and pain empathy. After controlling for…

We investigated (1) if the perceptual integration performance is different in children with ASD in comparison with their typically developed (TD) counterparts; and (2) if activating--priming--the global processing strategy, could benefit the integration performance of children with ASD in the subsequent task. We observed that in comparison with…

This study evaluated attention, sensory processing, and social responsiveness and the relationship between these constructs among autistic and neurotypical adults. Participants included 24 autistic adults (17-30 years) and 24 neurotypical peers who completed the Test of Everyday Attention, Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (AASP), and the Social…

Aim of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between sensory sensitivity and autistic eating behaviours or Eating Disorders (EDs) symptomatology, in a group of 75 adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) without intellectual disabilities, through a series of self-report questionnaires. We found that, controlling for demographic…

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social interaction, executive functioning, sensory-perceptual abilities and behaviour, such as anxious/depressed states, attention problems, aggression, or somatic complains. However, the dynamic relationship between these dimensions remains to be…

Interoceptive awareness refers to one's ability to detect, discriminate, and regulate internal bodily and mental processes. Interoceptive challenges in ASD remain under researched and poorly understood. In this study, we analyzed texts of adults who self-identify as autistic describing their interoceptive challenges. Many individuals described…

In this study, we investigated whether the difficulties in body motion (BM) perception may led to deficit in emotion recognition in Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). To this aim, individuals with high-functioning ASD were asked to recognise fearful, happy, and neutral BM depicted as static images or dynamic point-light and full-light displays.…

We explored the role of negative performance beliefs and self-focused attention considered central to psychological models of social anxiety but not studied in autism. Firstly, we compared self- and observer ratings of performance on a social task for 71 young autistic people, 41 high and 30 low in social anxiety, finding a significant main effect…

A maladaptive response to stress in individuals with high ADHD traits may be a key factor explaining co-occurring ADHD symptoms and internalising problems. The current study investigates whether between-person differences in ADHD traits are associated with differences in the within-person moment-to-moment coupling of stress and negative affect;…

Atypical sensory perception is one of the most ubiquitous symptoms of autism, including a tendency towards a local-processing bias. We investigated whether local-processing biases were associated with global-processing impairments on a global/local attentional-scope paradigm in conjunction with a composite-face task. Behavioural results were…

The link between autistic people having a mind that is difficult to read (by neurotypical participants) and being perceived unfavorably was investigated. Videoed Autistic and neurotypical targets from Sheppard et al. (PLOS ONE 7(11):e49859, 2016) were scored for how readable they were when reacting to a distinctive greeting from the experimenter.…

Research shows that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) differ in their behavioral patterns of responding to sensory stimuli (i.e., sensory responsiveness) and in various other aspects of sensory functioning relative to typical peers. This study explored relations between measures of sensory responsiveness and multisensory speech…

Atypical sensory responses are common in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While evidence suggests impaired auditory-visual integration for verbal information, findings for nonverbal stimuli are inconsistent. We tested for sensory symptoms in children with ASD (using the Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile) and examined unisensory and bisensory…

Aberrant interoceptive accuracy could contribute to the co-occurrence of anxiety and premonitory urge in chronic tic disorders (CTD). If it can be manipulated through intervention, it would offer a transdiagnostic treatment target for tics and anxiety. Interoceptive accuracy was first assessed consistent with previous protocols and then…

The social symptoms of autism spectrum disorder are likely influenced by multiple psychological processes, yet most previous studies have focused on a single social domain. In school-aged autistic children (n = 49), we compared the amount of variance in social symptoms uniquely explained by theory of mind (ToM), biological motion perception,…