The Moderating Effect of Sex on Autistic Trait Emotional Intelligence, Alexithymia, and Empathy.

The sample size was relatively small (86 analyzed), limiting power for detecting subtle effects. The groups were unbalanced for sex: the autistic group was predominantly male (34 males vs 14 females) while the non-autistic group was predominantly female (38 females vs 15 males), which may confound sex difference findings. The sample was predominantly cisgender, excluding gender-diverse individuals who are overrepresented in the autistic population. The sample had few participants with an IQ below 70, limiting generalizability to autistic adults with intellectual disability. All key variables were measured via self-report, which may be influenced by social desirability or lack of insight.

Do not conclude that autistic adults lack empathy. Empathy was not a significant predictor of autistic characteristics when controlling for trait emotional intelligence and alexithymia, suggesting that reported empathy differences may be secondary to these other factors.