An emotion recognition subtyping approach to studying the heterogeneity and comorbidity of autism spectrum disorders and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Publication year
2018Author(s)
Number of pages
10 p.
Source
Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, 10, (2018), article 31ISSN
Publication type
Article / Letter to editor
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Organization
Human Genetics
SW OZ DCC CO
Geriatrics
PI Group Memory & Emotion
Cognitive Neuroscience
Psychiatry
Journal title
Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Volume
vol. 10
Languages used
English (eng)
Subject
Action, intention, and motor control; All institutes and research themes of the Radboud University Medical Center; DI-BCB_DCC_Theme 2: Perception, Action and Control; Radboudumc 7: Neurodevelopmental disorders DCMN: Donders Center for Medical NeuroscienceAbstract
Background: Emotion recognition dysfunction has been reported in both autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This suggests that emotion recognition is a cross-disorder trait that may be utilised to understand the heterogeneous psychopathology of ASD and ADHD. We aimed to identify emotion recognition subtypes and to examine their relation with quantitative and diagnostic measures of ASD and ADHD to gain further insight into disorder comorbidity and heterogeneity. Methods: Factor mixture modelling was used on speed and accuracy measures of auditory and visual emotion recognition tasks. These were administered to children and adolescents with ASD (N = 89), comorbid ASD + ADHD (N = 64), their unaffected siblings (N = 122), ADHD (N = 111), their unaffected siblings (N = 69), and controls (N = 220). Identified classes were compared on diagnostic and quantitative symptom measures. Results: A four-class solution was revealed, with the following emotion recognition abilities: (1) average visual, impulsive auditory; (2) average-strong visual and auditory; (3) impulsive/imprecise visual, average auditory; (4) weak visual and auditory. The weakest performing class (4) contained the highest percentage of patients (66.07%) and the lowest percentage controls (10.09%), scoring the highest on ASD/ADHD measures. The best performing class (2) demonstrated the opposite: 48.98% patients, 15.26% controls with relatively low scores on ASD/ADHD measures. Conclusions: Subgroups of youths can be identified that differ both in quantitative and qualitative aspects of emotion recognition abilities. Weak emotion recognition abilities across sensory domains are linked to an increased risk for ASD as well as ADHD, although emotion recognition impairments alone are neither necessary nor sufficient parts of these disorders.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [238441]
- Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging [3824]
- Electronic publications [122521]
- Faculty of Medical Sciences [90373]
- Faculty of Social Sciences [29483]
- Open Access publications [97516]
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