The Latent Structure of Autistic Traits: A Taxometric, Latent Class and Latent Profile Analysis of the Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient

Richard J.E. James; Indu Dubey; Danielle Smith; Danielle Ropar; Richard J. Tunney

doi:10.1007/s10803-016-2897-z

The Latent Structure of Autistic Traits: A Taxometric, Latent Class and Latent Profile Analysis of the Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient

Richard J.E. James^*, Indu Dubey, Danielle Smith, Danielle Ropar, Richard J. Tunney

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Autistic traits are widely thought to operate along a continuum. A taxometric analysis of Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient data was conducted to test this assumption, finding little support but identifying a high severity taxon. To understand this further, latent class and latent profile models were estimated that indicated the presence of six distinct subtypes: one with little probability of endorsing any autistic traits, one engaging in ‘systemising’ behaviours, three groups endorsing multiple components of Wing and Gould’s autistic triad, and a group similar in size and profile to the taxon previously identified. These analyses suggest the AQ (and potentially by extension autistic traits) have a categorical structure. These findings have important implications for the analysis and interpretation of AQ data.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3712-3728
Number of pages	17
Journal	Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Volume	46
Issue number	12
Early online date	12 Sept 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-016-2897-z
Publication status	Published - 1 Dec 2016

Bibliographical note

© The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Keywords

Autism quotient
Autistic traits
Latent class analysis
Latent structure analysis
Nosology
Taxometric analysis

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10.1007/s10803-016-2897-zLicence: CC BY 3.0

The Latent Structure of Autistic Traits
© The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Final published version, 811 KBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

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The Latent Structure of Autistic Traits: A Taxometric, Latent Class and Latent Profile Analysis of the Adult Autism Spectrum Quotient

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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