The Actions and Feelings Questionnaire in Autism and Typically Developed Adults.
Justin H G Williams, Isobel M Cameron
PMID 28755033WHAT IT FOUND
Adults reporting autism scored lower on a questionnaire about reading emotions through body language, gestures and facial expressions.
The feelings subscale separated adults with and without autism similarly to an empathy questionnaire, but scores rely on self-report.
Key findings
01Adults without self-reported autism scored much higher on the total questionnaire and its feelings subscale than adults with self-reported autism.
02The feelings subscale accounted for most of the questionnaire's association with the empathy questionnaire, while the imagery subscale did not correlate.
03The feelings subscale and empathy questionnaire had the largest ability to distinguish autism status, while the imagery subscale had much lower ability.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Autism status was based on participants reporting a clinical diagnosis, not on verification by the study team. Recruitment was online through social networking, email lists and a volunteer autism database, so the sample may not represent adults seen in routine clinical services. The autism and non-autism groups differed in sex and other characteristics, and the authors note that sex differences could confound autism status effects. The imagery subscale had weaker item consistency and poor discrimination, so the total score should not be treated as one uniform measure. The study reports questionnaire scores only, not whether the measure changes clinical decisions or patient outcomes.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat a low questionnaire score as an autism diagnosis. The study compared groups defined by self-reported autism status, and it did not show that the questionnaire can diagnose autism in an individual patient.