Observational study reveals high rates of dysfunctional personality traits in autistic adolescents, indicating the need for early developmental assessments.
Key Points
Investigate the prevalence of dysfunctional personality traits and evaluate their links to psychiatric comorbidities, clinical severity, and psychosocial functioning in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.
Assessed N=79 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder without intellectual disability (mean age = 15.15 ± 1.50 years; 45.6% females).
Conducted multimodal diagnostic evaluations using the ADOS-2, ADI-R, WISC-IV/WAIS-IV, SCID-5-PD, K-SADS-PL, and standardized questionnaires.
Dysfunctional personality traits (DPTs) were identified in 64.5% of participants (75.0% in females vs. 48.9% in males), with prior ASD diagnoses missing in 62% overall and significantly more absent in females (OR = 2.86, p = .030).
Cluster A traits were most frequent (38.0%; schizoid 22.8%), while Cluster B borderline traits were significantly more prevalent in females than males (22.2% vs. 2.3%, p = .006).
DPT presence significantly correlated with lower functioning on the Children’s Global Assessment Scale (p = .037) and higher severity on Clinical Global Impression scales (p < .019) after FDR correction.