Assessing emotional characteristics in Asian autistic adults without intellectual disability.

Researchers studied how well 253 Asian autistic adults without intellectual disability could understand and manage emotions, comparing them to people without autism and people with schizophrenia. They found autistic adults had more trouble recognizing and handling emotions. Interestingly, autistic adults and their mothers often disagreed about the adults' emotional abilities, especially for men. This suggests autistic adults may need extra help learning emotional skills.

This cross-sectional study examined emotional characteristics in 253 Asian autistic adults without intellectual disability using the Schutte's Emotion Intelligence Scale, comparing them to 56 non-autistic controls and 56 individuals with schizophrenia. The research found that autistic adults demonstrated significant difficulties in emotion perception and management that were distinct from those seen in schizophrenia and correlated with core autistic features. Notably, there was poor agreement between self-reports and mother-reports of emotional intelligence, particularly among autistic males. The findings suggest autistic adults require targeted support for developing emotional skills.

Results suggest autistic adults require specialized support for emotion perception and management skills. Assessment should consider discrepancies between self and family reports, particularly for males. Interventions should target autism-specific emotional challenges rather than applying general emotional intelligence programs.

Study design unclear from abstract. Cultural generalizability limited to Asian populations. Relies on single emotion intelligence scale. No information provided about reliability of repeated measurements or potential confounding variables.

This study aimed to characterize the emotional features in Asian autistic adults without intellectual disability (n = 253) in comparison to non-autistic comparisons (n = 56) and schizophrenia (n = 56) by the Schutte's Emotion Intelligence Scale (SEIS). Among the autistic adults, 226 obtained results of both self-reported and mother-reported SEIS; 64 had repeated the SEIS within one month. We found low agreement between self-report and mother-report, particularly in autistic males. Overall, autistic adults showed difficulties in emotion perception and management that were differentiated from schizophrenia and were correlated with autistic features.

Autistic adults may need more support and services in emotion perception and management.