A Network Analysis of Alexithymia, Interoception, Empathy, Self-Awareness and Psychopathological Symptoms in Young People With Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Network analysis uncovers relationships among empathy, self-awareness, and symptoms in young people with ASD, suggesting interoception plays a critical role.
Key Points
This research aims to explore the interrelationships between alexithymia, interoception, empathy, self-awareness, and psychopathological symptoms in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Conducted network analysis on 208 young individuals aged 15-25 with ADOS-2 confirmed ASD diagnosis.
Administered self-report measures for interoception, empathy, self-awareness, and alexithymia.
Developed a regularized partial correlation network to assess relationships among the constructs.
The alexithymia node of 'difficulty-describing-feelings-to-others' had an expected influence of 0.854.
Interoceptive awareness showed a strength of 1.273 and an expected influence of -0.084.
Depressive symptoms had an expected influence of 0.537, while anxiety symptoms had an expected influence of 0.652.