Towards better characterization of restricted and unusual interests in Youth with Autism
Despite their high prevalence and clinical importance in autism, unusual and restricted interests remain under-researched and poorly understood. This study aimed to characterize the frequency and type of interests in autism by coding caregivers’ open-ended responses in a sample of 237 autistic child...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Autism : the international journal of research and practice 2021-11, Vol.26 (5), p.1296-1304 |
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Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | Despite their high prevalence and clinical importance in autism, unusual and restricted interests remain under-researched and poorly understood. This study aimed to characterize the frequency and type of interests in autism by coding caregivers’ open-ended responses in a sample of 237 autistic children and adolescents (
M
age
= 8.27 years,
SD
age
= 4.07; range: 2.08–18.25 years). It further aimed to explore the effects of age, sex, cognitive functioning and social and communication deficits on the number and type of interests. We found that 75% of autistic youth had at least one interest and that 50% of those children showed two or more different interests. The most frequent interests were sensory-based (43%), with a majority of these interests relating to the visual modality. Interest within vehicles/transportation, fictional characters, TV/DVD/movies, computers and video games, constructive, mechanical objects, animals and plants, and attachment to specific objects were also prevalent. Logistic regression showed that being male, having a co-occurring intellectual disability and having more severe social and communication impairments were associated with a higher probability of having one or more restricted interests. Sex was significantly associated with the type (
χ
2
= 37.52, Phi= .37,
p
= .021) of restricted interests, with females showing a significantly higher percentage of creative interests and males significantly higher percentage of interest in characters, vehicles/transportation, computers/video games, mechanical objects and constructive interests. Theoretical and measurement implications are discussed. |
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ISSN: | 1362-3613 1461-7005 |
DOI: | 10.1177/13623613211056720 |