Neuropsychological Approach on Expressed Emotion in Neurotypical and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Path Model Analysis

Abstract

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects individual social communication with a range of restricted behaviour patterns. People with ASD will also have difficulties with social emotional reciprocity, which is not predominantly found in neurotypical individuals. Individuals with ASD have difficulty connecting with neurotypical (i.e., nonautistic) people because they fail to identify other people's emotions and mental states. Alexithymia is a personality characteristic defined by a subclinical inability to identify and explain one's own emotions. Alexithymia is defined by a significant dysfunction in emotional awareness, social attachment, and interpersonal relationships. It is distinguished by impaired emotional awareness, which has been increasing in diagnostic frequency in a variety of neuropsychiatric diseases, with notable overlap with ASD. To empirically measure the condition of alexithymia in neurotypical individuals (N = 12) and people diagnosed with ASD (N = 12), were assessed with the Observer Alexithymia Scale (OAS) by Haviland et al., 2000. The mean age of the neurotypical is (M = 21.67; SD = 2.60) and the ASD is (M = 18.33; SD = 2.22). Using SPSS ver.20, the data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics methods. The results indicate the significant difference between neurotypical and autism spectrum disorder individuals with the condition of alexithymia. The path model, which was drawn from the SPSS AMOS version 20, emphasises the causal relationship between variables of interest from the Observer Alexithymia Scale. This study found that individuals with ASD have significant corroboration to alexithymia when compared to neurotypical individuals.