(i) 46% of ASD parents, particularly fathers, versus 0% of controls had “schizoid” personality traits, meaning impaired rapport with interviewers, suspiciousness, low-emotional responsiveness, difficulties with communication (either over or under), guardedness, and excessive discussion of special interests (ii) Most ASD parents did not meet full criteria for a personality disorder
(i) 43 ASD parents (sex breakdown not reported) (ii) 21 Control Adults (sex breakdown not reported)
DS parents and adults with no children with ASD
PRS
(i) Using blindly rated scores, 42% of ASD parents had some pragmatic language deficit compared to 2% of controls (ii) No sex differences and scores were not significantly correlated with IQ
(i) Affected children had a variety of cognitive levels, evenly sampled across severity levels (, 51–70, and 70+) (ii) ASD parents (51 mothers, 46 fathers) (iii) Control Parents (30 mothers, 24 fathers) (iv) 72 ASD siblings (aged 6–18 years) (v) 46 Control siblings (aged 6–18 years)
DS parents (to control for low IQs) and parents of very low birth weight children (to control for higher IQs)
(i) Relative’s Screening Interview (developmental history) (ii) VABS
(i) Primarily examined cognitive functioning and results are described in text (ii) No differences on the social and communication domains of the VABS in ASD siblings compared to control siblings or across IQ of the affected child (all were in average range) (iii) No differences per developmental history of social and communication delays between the groups (i.e., 18.8% of ASD siblings had social problems compared to 15.9% of control siblings)
(i) Affected children were oversampled for females. Sampled evenly for IQs between 30–49, 50–69, and 70+. (ii) ASD Relatives (198 parents, 137 siblings) (iii) Control Relatives (72 parents, 64 siblings)
DS parents and siblings
FHI
(i) 20.4% of ASD siblings demonstrated either communication atypicalities, social impairments, or restricted behaviors compared to 3.1% of control siblings (ii) Parents showed this same pattern of results, to a lesser degree (iii) More common among males (iv) Severity of lesser variant was related to severity of symptoms in child with ASD only for those children with speech
(i) Affected children had IQs evenly distributed across severity levels.
(i) 24% of ASD parents were rated to be aloof (decreased interest in social interaction) compared to 8% of DS parents
(ii) ASD parents (45 mothers, 42 fathers)
DS parents
M-PAS
(ii) 22% of ASD parents were rated to be undemonstrative (restricted range of affective expression) compared to 11% of DS parents
(i) Multiplex ASD families, 51% of affected children had IQs over 70 (ii) ASD parents (25 mothers, 23 fathers) (iii) Control Parents (30 mothers, 30 fathers)
DS parents
(i) M-PAS-R (ii) PRS
(i) 25–50% of ASD parents showed aloof, hypersensitive to criticism, anxious, and rigidity (difficulty adjusting to change) traits compared to 3–5% of DS parents (ii) No consistent evidence for sex differences (iii) Quality and quantity of friendships was rated lower in ASD parents (particularly fathers) (iv) Significantly more ASD parents had some measure of pragmatic language deficits compared to controls (impairments in 18–25% of ASD parents versus 0–6% of DS parents) (v) Unrelated to IQ scores
(i) Same ASD and parent sample as Piven, Palmer, Landa et al., 1997 [15] (ii) 12 ASD siblings (iii) 53 Control siblings (iv) ASD Extended Family Members (96 grandparents, 145 aunts/uncles) (v) Control Extended Family Members (120 grandparents, 168 aunts/uncles)
DS relatives
FHI
(i) Social deficits : 57% of ASD fathers versus 13% of DS fathers; 36% of ASD mothers versus 13% of DS mothers (ii) Communication deficits: 20% of ASD mothers versus 0% of DS mothers; nonsignificant difference in fathers (iii) Stereotyped behaviors: 26% of ASD fathers versus 3% of DS fathers; 12% of ASD mothers versus 0% of DS mothers (iv) ASD siblings and extended relatives demonstrated more social deficits and restricted/repetitive interests on the FHI than controls (more often in male relatives); differences were less pronounced than parents
(i) Affected children stratified to include ~equal numbers across IQ severity levels (<30, 30–50, 50–70, and 70+) (ii) 166 ASD parents (iii) 75 Control Parents (iv) ASD siblings (42 males, 45 females) (v) Control siblings (28 males, 36 females)
DS relatives
(i) FHI (ii) PRS (iii) Friendship Interview (iv) PAS (“Aloof”)
(i) Primarily examined cognitive functioning and results are described elsewhere (ii) ASD parents with early cognitive difficulties on the FHI (e.g., late onset of speech, reading/spelling difficulties) showed greater pragmatic language deficits despite average Verbal IQ compared to control parents (iii) This relationship was insignificant on the “aloof” item of the PAS and the friendship interview
(i) Same ASD sample as Bolton et al., 1994 [12] (ii) ASD Relatives over 18 years old (195 parents and 97 siblings) (iii) Control Relatives over 18 years old (72 parents and 52 siblings)
DS relatives
(i) M-PAS (ii) FHI
(i) In ASD parents, the traits anxious and conscientious were prominent compared to DS Parents (ii) In ASD adult siblings, the traits aloof, shy, undemonstrative, impulsive, sensitive, self-conscious and eccentric were significantly elevated compared to DS adult siblings (iii) Factor analysis revealed three factors on the M-PAS: “Withdrawn,” “Tense,” and “Difficult”. In ASD parents and siblings, the item total for each factor was more than twice that of DS parents and siblings (iv) One SD increase in symptom severity of the affected child on the ADI led to a 17% increase in “withdrawn” factor on M-PAS
(i) Combined two study samples to allow for even distribution of IQ of the affected child (including an oversampling of IQs < 50) (ii) 285 ASD parents (iii) 72 Control Parents (iv) 189 ASD siblings (also 30 half siblings) (v) 64 Control siblings (also 1 half sibling) (vi) ASD Extended Family Members (527 grandparents, 543 aunts/uncles, 774 first cousins) (vii) Control Extended Family Members (139 grandparents, 166 aunts/uncles, 277 first cousins)
DS relatives
FHI
(i) 7.5% of all ASD relatives were classified as BAP by the FHI compared to 2.7% of controls (ii) Differences in extended relatives were less significant than in ASD parents and siblings (iii) More often in males (iv) No evidence for simple X-linked or imprinted X-linked inheritance patterns (v) Severity of BAP traits on the FHI was related to severity of symptoms in the affected child only for those affected children with speech
(i) Affected children had IQ > 65 and were only male (ii) ASD parents (21 mothers, 21 fathers) (iii) Dyslexia Parents (14 mothers, 13 fathers) (iv) Control Parents (14 mothers, 14 fathers) (v) 19 ASD siblings (males only) (vi) 13 Dyslexia siblings (vii) 20 Control siblings
(i) Relatives of individuals with Dyslexia (ii) Relatives without any family members with developmental disorders
(i) Interview developed by authors (i) Parent or self-report of social functioning and nonsocial features related to ASD
(i) ASD parents (particularly fathers) had significantly higher scores than parents in both the dyslexia and typically developing groups (ii) 62% of ASD fathers obtained high total scores compared to 15% of the dyslexia and 0% of the control fathers (iii) Differences not found in siblings
(i) Affected children (59 met for autism, 21 met for PDD-NOS) (ii) ASD parents (65 mothers, 46 fathers) (iii) Control Parents (48 mothers, 37 fathers)
Parents of children without ASD
AQ
(i) Social and communication skills significantly lower in ASD parents (particularly fathers) compared to control parents (ii) Scores on other categories (attention to detail, attention switching, and imagination) did not differ between groups
(i) Same ASD sample as Bishop et al., 2004 [21] (ii) 43 ASD siblings (iii) 46 Control children
Typically developing children of a variety of IQ levels
CCC-2
(i) 23.8% of ASD siblings scored 2 SD below the control mean compared to 2.2% of controls (ii) ASD siblings with low scores on the CCC-2 tended to have fathers with evidence for the BAP via self-report on the AQ (iii) VIQ of the affected child was unrelated to CCC-2 scores in ASD siblings (iv) Differences in structural language skills also noted
(i) Average FSIQ of affected children was 88.9 (ii) ASD parents (12 mothers, 11 fathers) (iii) DS Parents (10 mothers, 2 fathers) (iv) Control Parents (9 mothers, 14 fathers)
(i) Parents of “healthy” children matched for mental (but not chronological) age of affected child (ii) Parents of children with DS
(i) Gricean conversational maxims tasks (ii) Methods described elsewhere [24]
(i) ASD parents detected fewer pragmatic language errors (2 SD below the norm) in recorded conversations (e.g., failing to perceive redundant, irrelevant, or uninformative information) compared to parents in both control groups
(i) Affected children were “high functioning” and were either simplex or multiplex (ii) ASD parents (enriched for those with BAP traits as measured by M-PAS-R; 23 fathers, 25 mothers) (iii) Control Parents (9 fathers, 13 mothers)
DS parent or parent of typically developing children
(i) M-PAS-R (ii) PRS (iii) Friendship Interview (iv) Reading the Mind from the Eyes test
(i) Only those parents with aloof personalities had significant difficulty recognizing emotion/mental states (ii) Performance predicted difficulties in pragmatic language and lower quality of friendships for aloof parents only (iii) Offers evidence for distinct subtypes of ASD relatives
(i) Affected children had “sufficient language to complete battery”; average FSIQ was 86.63 (ii) ASD parents (23 fathers, 24 mothers) (iii) SLI Parents (21 fathers, 26 mothers) (iv) DS Parents (10 fathers, 11 mothers)
(i) SLI parents (score <13th percentile on standardized language test or <9th percentile on nonword repetition) (ii) DS parents
PRS-M
(i) ~ 15% of both SLI and ASD parents (particularly fathers) had significant conversation challenges compared to < 5% of DS parents (ii) No significant differences in overall score between SLI and ASD parents on the PRS-M
(i) Affected children had NVIQ >85 (ii) ASD parents (20 mothers, 10 fathers) (iii) SLI Parents (22 mothers, 8 fathers) (iv) Typical Parents (23 mothers, 7 fathers)
(i) SLI parents (scores <10th percentile on at least 2 standardized language tests) (ii) Parents of typically developing children
AQ
(i) Primarily examined structural language functioning and results are described elsewhere (ii) Self-report of pragmatic language abilities differentiated SLI from ASD parents on the AQ (iii) 20% of ASD parents showed BAP compared to 3.3% of SLI parents
(i) Affected children were >16 years and had NVIQ >80 (ii) 83 ASD parents (iii) 32 Control Parents
Parents of typically developing child without family history of ASD
(i) M-PAS-R (ii) Several social cognition tasks
(i) 27% of ASD parents had social features of BAP (more often in fathers) while 41% had rigidity traits on the M-PAS-R (equal % mothers and fathers) (ii) Only the group of ASD parents with social features of the BAP were less accurate in several social cognition tasks (iii) ASD parents without the social BAP performed similarly to controls on these tasks
(i) Affected children diagnosed with autism, Asperger’s, or PDD-NOS via ADOS and clinical evaluation (either simplex or multiplex) (ii) All families included mother, father, “proband,” and infant sibling (portion of families had an additional sibling) (iii) 124 Simplex ASD Families (iv) 11 Multiplex ASD Families (v) 82 ASD Controls
(i) Parents, infant, and additional siblings of typically developing child
SRS
(i) At 36 months, infant siblings were categorized as typical, ASD, or “other developmental concerns” (ii) Greater BAP traits in ASD fathers and additional siblings (but not mothers) compared to control fathers (no differences between ASD simplex and multiplex fathers, but multiplex siblings had greater SRS scores than simplex siblings) (iii) ASD multiplex infant siblings more likely (64%) to develop ASD than ASD simplex (9%) and control (4%) (iv) 27% of ASD simplex infant siblings had other developmental concerns versus 11% of typical infant siblings (v) Neither parent, proband, or additional sibling severity predicted infant sibling diagnostic status (vi) Father (but not mother) severity predicted proband severity and proband severity predicted additional sibling severity
(i) Affected children (parent-report of diagnosis on the autism spectrum) (ii) 90% simplex, 10% multiplex (iii) ASD Parents (1429 mothers, 571 fathers) (iv) Control Parents (558 mothers, 349 fathers)
Parents of typically developing children
AQ
(i) ASD parents had greater AQ scores in 4 of 5 domains than control parents, with males overall showing greater impairment than females in both groups (ii) 33% of ASD fathers and 23% of ASD mothers versus 22% control fathers and 9% of control mothers had AQ scores at least 1 SD above mean
Abbreviations: ADOS : Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule; AQ : Autism Spectrum Quotient; ASD parents : undiagnosed parents of individuals diagnosed with ASD; ASD siblings : undiagnosed siblings of individuals diagnosed with ASD; CCC-2 : Children’s Communication Checklist-2; DS : Down syndrome; FHI : Family History Interview; M-PAS : Modified Personality Assessment Schedule, M-PAS-R : Modified Personality Assessment Schedule, Revised; PAS : Personality Assessment Schedule; PRS : Pragmatic Rating Scale; S : D Standard Deviation; SLI : Specific Language Impairment; VABS : Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales.
