Impairments in cognitive empathy and alexithymia occur independently of executive functioning in college students with autism.

The sample was 53 students with autism and 29 controls, all Dutch post-secondary students, mostly male, and with above-average IQ, so it may not apply to children, women, lower-IQ groups, or other countries. The autism group was about 2 years older and had higher estimated IQ than the control group, although the paper reports no significant correlations of age or IQ with the empathy and alexithymia outcomes. Empathy was rated only by mothers, and 52% of those reports were missing and imputed; the informant version's psychometric properties were not established. Psychiatric comorbidity data were unavailable, and 36% of the autism group used psychotropic medication, so comorbid conditions or medication may have influenced results. The study was cross-sectional and did not test any intervention, so it cannot show that executive-function training helps or fails.

Funded by the Stumass Foundation, a non-profit that provides assisted living housing for students with autism and through which the autism group was recruited. No other conflict-of-interest statement is provided.

Do not conclude that executive-function support will not help students with autism. The study only tested correlations between executive-function test scores and empathy or alexithymia in 53 students with autism and 29 controls; it did not test any intervention.