Social cognition as a predictor of functional and social skills in autistic adults without intellectual disability

Abstract

Autistic adults, including those without intellectual disability, commonly experience poor social and functional outcomes. Although reduced social cognitive ability in autism is often theorized as a mechanism of these poor outcomes, there has been surprisingly little empirical work testing this assumption. Here, 103 autistic adults without intellectual disability completed a comprehensive battery that included eight social cognitive tasks psychometrically validated for use with this population (e.g., emotion recognition and theory of mind), five tasks assessing neurocognitive abilities (e.g., processing speed and working memory), performance‐based measures of their functional skills, and a standardized assessment of their social skills. Collectively, the combination of demographic variables, IQ, neurocognitive performance, and social cognitive performance accounted for 49% of the variance in functional skills and 33% of the variance in social skills. For functional skills, demographic variables, and general and neurocognition independently accounted for a significant portion of the variance, but social cognition did not. Social cognition did, however, significantly mediate the effect of neurocognition on functional skills. Social cognition also accounted for significant proportion in the variance in social skills above and beyond the relatively large contribution of neurocognition. Taken together, findings indicate that social cognitive ability contributes to functional and social skills in autistic adults without intellectual disability, but this contribution may be more limited and indirect than commonly assumed. Autism Res 2020, 13:259–270. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary Many social programs for autistic adults presume that improving social cognition will translate to better life outcomes. In this study of 103 autistic adults without intellectual disability, we found that social cognitive abilities do contribute to real‐world social and daily living skills, but this contribution is small and indirect once general‐cognitive abilities are taken into account. Although results substantiate social cognition as an independent cognitive capacity in autism spectrum disorder, its unique contribution to functional and social outcomes may be more limited than previously assumed.

Different associations between intelligence and social cognition in children with and without autism spectrum disorders

“…They reported that female subjects with ASD performed better on those tests than male subjects with ASD did. Other reports have described non-significant results in terms of ToM [ 24 , 27 ]. One explanation is expected to be that the current findings were driven by the few female subjects in the sample.…”

Neurotype-Matching, but Not Being Autistic, Influences Self and Observer Ratings of Interpersonal Rapport

“…Interpersonal interactions are a rich source of social information, and it is possible autistic individuals may be placing greater emphasis on some information more than others, or have their rapport limited by the volume of interactional processing going on (Murray et al, 2005). Second, due to well-documented autistic differences in social cognition (e.g., Sasson et al, 2020) autistic people may underestimate their rapport due to negative self-perception of their social skills (Hull et al, 2017) or lower self-perceived social competence (Jamison and Schuttler, 2015). Poor self-perception may also be the consequence of having a history of negative social interactions with individuals.…”

“…Nonverbal and verbal communicative behaviors, including facial expressions, eye contact, postural mirroring, and tone play an important role in building rapport in people presumed to be neurotypical (Tickle-Degnen and Rosenthal, 1990); while not exhibiting these behaviors is related to poorer rapport (Richmond and McCroskey, 1995;Grahe and Bernieri, 1999;Hove and Risen, 2009). As difficulties with processing and expressing verbal and non-verbal social cues amongst autistic individuals have been well documented (Bottema-Beutel et al, 2019;Sasson et al, 2020), we might expect this to subsequently impact upon their development of rapport with others.…”

Social Cognition in a Research Domain Criteria Perspective: A Bridge Between Schizophrenia and Autism Spectra Disorders

“…Social isolation and community-living impairment resulting from these socio-cognitive deficits are common features in individuals with ASD ( 19 – 21 ), often leading to lower quality of life ( 22 – 24 ). These SC deficits appear to have an impact on functional and social skills in subjects with ASD also in the presence of a normal Intelligence Quotient (IQ) ( 25 ).…”