Autism symptoms in anorexia nervosa: a comparative study with females with autism spectrum disorder.
Jess Kerr-Gaffney, Hannah Hayward, Emily J H Jones and 3 others
PMID 34193255WHAT IT FOUND
Women with anorexia nervosa showed intermediate autism symptoms compared to those with autism spectrum disorder.
Recovered women scored similarly to acute patients, suggesting these traits persist beyond starvation. However, only quality of social response clearly distinguished the two conditions.
Key findings
01Recovered anorexia nervosa patients showed similar levels of autism symptoms to those with acute anorexia nervosa, indicating these traits are not solely caused by starvation.
02Quality of social response was the only ADOS-2 item that adequately discriminated between autism spectrum disorder and anorexia nervosa.
03Women with autism spectrum disorder showed significantly higher overall autism scores than those with anorexia nervosa, who scored between the autism and typically developing groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot determine if autism symptoms in anorexia nervosa patients changed over time or were present before the eating disorder developed. Participants with anorexia nervosa were excluded only if they had a self-reported autism diagnosis, without a full clinical assessment, meaning some undiagnosed cases of autism may have been included in the eating disorder groups. The study only included females with average or above average IQ, so the findings may not apply to males or those with intellectual disabilities. Data for the SRS-2 measure was missing for a significant portion of the sample, reducing the power of those specific comparisons.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Medical Research Council, Maudsley Charity, and the Innovative Medicines Initiative. No commercial conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that high autism questionnaire scores in anorexia nervosa patients confirm a diagnosis of autism. The study found that women with anorexia nervosa score significantly higher than controls on autism measures, but these scores are generally lower than those of autistic women and may reflect overlapping social anxiety or rigidity rather than autism.