Social Cognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype

Background:

Some relatives of children with ASD show milder phenotypes related to autism, known as the broader autism phenotype (BAP).  There is an increasing interest in characterising the cognitive profile of the BAP, as affected relatives may use alternative cognitive strategies in comparison with the typically developing population.

Objectives:

Preliminary exploration of social cognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype.

Methods:

To date fifty parents in UK families with multiple incidence of ASD have been assessed on three ‘Theory of Mind’ tasks: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task (Baron- Cohen et al., 2001), the Social Attribution Task (Klin, 2000) and the Village Task (unpublished).  The Village Task is a non-verbal social cartoon during which participants are asked mental state questions.  A revised Family History Interview (FHI) designed to assess behaviours associated with the BAP was administered to the participant (FHIS) and an informant (FHII). The interview questions fall into different behavioural domains – communication, repetitive behaviours and social.  Scores derived from the social domain were used in this study.

Results:

The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task positively correlated with verbal IQ, but did not correlate with the FHI social domain.  The Village Task positively correlated with IQ and with the FHII social domain. Scores in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task and the Village Task were not correlated with each other.  Data on the relationship between the Social Attribution Task and the other two social cognition tasks will also be presented.

Conclusions:

This preliminary data suggests that there is an association between the BAP, assessed through an interview measure, and an experimental measure of social cognition.  The Reading the Mind in the Eyes task was not associated with the interview assessment of the BAP, but did correlate with verbal IQ.