Psychometric Evaluation of Social Cognitive Measures for Adults with Autism.
Kerrianne E Morrison, Amy E Pinkham, Skylar Kelsven and 3 others
PMID 30770676WHAT IT FOUND
Two tests of understanding what others think were the best at separating adults with autism from typically developing adults.
Several face and emotion tests also helped, but a cartoon test, a point-light motion test and a trustworthiness test did not separate the groups.
Key findings
01The TASIT and Hinting tasks separated adults with autism from typically developing adults more clearly than the face and emotion tasks.
02The cartoon theory-of-mind task, basic point-light motion task, and trustworthiness task did not separate the groups.
03The mind-in-the-eyes and cartoon theory-of-mind tasks behaved like face and emotion tasks in the autism group, not like the thought and relationship tasks.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The tasks were chosen mainly for schizophrenia clinical trials, so they may not be the best set for autism. The study did not test whether these tasks predict real-world functioning or whether scores stay stable over time. The sample was mostly male and mostly Caucasian, so results may not apply to autistic women or minority groups. The typically developing group was selected from a larger study and was younger, more male, and higher IQ than the original SCOPE control group, which may explain weaker task consistency in that group. The grouping of tasks was exploratory and may reflect this sample rather than a stable structure. The study tested measurement properties, not treatment effects.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The article is listed as supported by NIH extramural research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the group differences as evidence that these tasks diagnose autism or that social cognition training works. The study tested how well tasks measured social cognition, not whether treatment helps. Scores were also strongly related to IQ.