Explaining Variance in Social Symptoms of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

The social symptoms of autism spectrum disorder are likely influenced by multiple psychological processes, yet most previous studies have focused on a single social domain. In school-aged autistic children (n = 49), we compared the amount of variance in social symptoms uniquely explained by theory of mind (ToM), biological motion perception, empathy, social reward, and social anxiety. Parent-reported emotional contagion-the aspect of empathy in which one shares another's emotion-emerged as the most important predictor, explaining 11-14% of the variance in social symptoms, with higher levels of emotional contagion predicting lower social symptom severity. Our findings highlight the role of mutual emotional experiences in social-interactive success, as well as the limitations of standard measures of ToM and social processing in general.

Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder; Biological motion perception; Empathy; Social anxiety; Social reward; Theory of mind.

Figure 1.

Distributions of ASD compared with TD groups on all variables. Solid bold outlines indicate strong evidence for group differences (BF₁₀ > 10). Dashed outlines indicate moderate evidence for no group differences (BF₀₁ ≥ 3). SS Control = Strange Stories Control condition; SS Mental = Strange Stories Mental condition; RMET = Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test; ToMI = Theory of Mind Inventory; BMP = biological motion perception; GEM Affective = Griffith Empathy Measure, Affective subscale (emotional contagion); SRQ = Social Reward Questionnaire

Figure 2.

Percentage of variance in social symptom severity in autistic participants uniquely explained by each predictor (general dominance weights) within the top six models. BF₁₀ = Bayes factor in favor of each model against the null (intercept-only) model

Figure 3.

Percentage of variance in social symptom severity in autistic participants uniquely explained by each predictor (general dominance weights). All predictors together explained 29.5% of the variance.

Figure 4.

Interactions between parent-reported social anxiety and (a) verbal-cognitive ToM and (b) biological motion perception in explaining social symptom severity in autistic participants. We defined high social anxiety as a raw score of 8 or above; according to the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) scoring guide, these scores may indicate social anxiety disorder. We defined low social anxiety as a raw score of 3 (approximately one standard deviation below the mean of our sample) or below. SS Mental = Strange Stories Mental condition