Late Bloomer Offending Patterns: Towards a Harder Empirical Definition—Commentary on Matsuda et al. (2022)

Abstract

Matsuda et al. (2022) show that late bloomers also exist in self-report data. They use a “dynamic” definition of late bloomer offending pattern as they have concerns with definitions based on arbitrary age cutoff points. But the approach does not make the groups less arbitrary than hard definitions. In this commentary, I argue that a hard definition has important advantages and demonstrates an alternative using a hard definition while exploring heterogeneity within the late onset group.