Autistic traits are a composition of behavioral constructs that encompasses social functioning, communication, and rigid and repetitive behaviors that might impact an individual’s quality of life. The specificity of these traits is not yet fully understood, nor which traits that might be most debilitating for autistic people. We recruited 366 participants, out of which 78 were diagnosed as autistic, and measured levels of different character traits as well as their quality of life. We ran a Bayesian regression model and found extreme evidence that the behavioral constructs of prosopagnosia, social anhedonia, alexithymia and cognitive empathy contribute to autistic social functioning, while affective empathy did not seem to contribute to the same extent. To estimate the effect of each construct on quality of life we employed Causal Inference methodology and found likely effects of social anhedonia (-0.131 [-0.248, 0.00]) and alexithymia (-0.255 [-0.37, -0.154]). Therefore, both social anhedonia and alexithymia might be effective targets for intervention for autistic people struggling with social functioning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:liu-195436 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Pieslinger, Johan |
| Publisher | Linköpings universitet, Institutionen för datavetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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