Search

Background/objectives: Autistic people employ various social strategies to form and maintain interpersonal relationships in their daily environments. These strategies can help autistic people with social interactions (leading to self-perceived efficacy of using social strategies), but can also lead to cognitive fatigue (self-perceived effort of using social strategies). However, previous studies have focused primarily on self-perceived effort, overlooking the self-perceived efficacy of using social strategies, and the balance between self-perceived effort and efficacy. To address this gap, this study examined the impact of autistic people's use of social strategies on their well-being, focusing on self-perceived effort, self-perceived efficacy, and their interaction effect., Methods: An online survey was conducted among self-reported autistic people in Japan aged 18-65 years, using a modified Compensation Checklist. Data from 104 self-reported autistic participants were analyzed using linear regression., Results: High self-perceived effort in using social strategies was negatively associated with well-being, whereas high self-perceived efficacy was positively associated with well-being. The interaction effect between effort and efficacy was not significant. These results were supported even when loneliness was used as an index of social well-being. Additionally, the number of strategies used by an autistic person was positively associated with well-being., Conclusions: This study highlights the double-edged effect of autistic people using social strategies, and that using a broader repertoire of social strategies may improve the well-being of autistic people. These findings call for a nuanced approach by researchers and clinicians considering both the positive and negative aspects of using social strategies.

Objective: The implementation of school-based mental health screening offers promise for early detection of mental health issues in children; however, various barriers hinder its widespread adoption. This study aimed to investigate the predictive value of digital data obtained from an established daily health observation scheme in Japanese schools to identify later mental health issues in children., Methods: Data for the analysis were obtained from 2,433 students enrolled in five public schools. The data acquisition period spanned 76 school days, from September 1, 2022, to December 23, 2022, and student absences were recorded during this period. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were assessed in January 2023. The students' daily physical and emotional health status was recorded as "daily health issue" scores and group-based trajectory modeling was employed to classify the long-term trends in these scores. Additionally, rolling z-scores were utilized to capture variability in daily health issue scores, with z-scores above +1 considered unusual responses., Results: After 4 months of daily health observations, students' response trends were classified into five trajectory groups. The group experiencing the highest number of daily health issues (Group 5; 5.4% of the sample) exhibited more subsequent depressive and anxiety symptoms compared to the group with fewer issues (Group 1; 47.5%) (incident rate ratio [IRR] = 5.17; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.82, 6.99). Group 5 also demonstrated significantly more days of absence than Group 1 (IRR = 2.14, 95% CI: 1.19, 3.85). The average daily health issue scores for the entire period were associated with both depressive/anxiety symptoms and the number of days absent from school (IRR = 1.59, 95% CI: 1.45, 1.73; IRR = 1.18, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.35, respectively). Furthermore, a higher number of unusual responses during the entire period was also associated with more depressive/anxiety symptoms (IRR = 1.10, 95% CI: 1.07, 1.12)., Conclusion: The current study is the first to demonstrate the predictive capability of a traditional daily health observation scheme to identify mental health issues in children. This study highlights the scheme's potential to screen and safeguard children's mental health, emphasizing the importance of digitalization and collaboration with various stakeholders., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision., (Copyright © 2024 Nishimura, Wakuta, Osuka, Tsukui, Hirata, Takahashi, Adachi, Katayama, Aizaki, Sumiya, Kawakami, Iwabuchi and Senju.)

Many autistic people reportedly engage in camouflaging to navigate everyday social interactions; however, the function of this behavior remains largely unknown. We hypothesized that autistic people camouflage more toward neurotypical others than toward autistic others, employing it as a strategy to "fit in" within the neurotypical-majority community. This study aimed to empirically investigate this hypothesis for the first time. Autistic and neurotypical participants took part in a web-based survey. Data from 48 autistic and 137 neurotypical participants were analyzed. Camouflaging toward autistic and neurotypical others was separately measured using the modified Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q). For each CAT-Q item, a sentence describing a hypothetical interaction partner with autistic or neurotypical characteristics was added, creating respective sentence conditions. The interaction effect of the participants' characteristics and sentence conditions was analyzed using a multilevel regression analysis, accounting for differing individual baselines. The analysis revealed an interaction effect between participants' characteristics and sentence conditions. The autistic group showed significantly more camouflaging in the autistic sentence condition than in the neurotypical sentence condition. Conversely, the neurotypical group did not differ significantly in camouflaging levels in the sentence conditions. Contrary to our hypothesis, autistic people demonstrated more camouflaging toward autistic others than toward neurotypical others. This finding questions the assumption that autistic people camouflage to assimilate into a neurotypical-majority society. Instead, it could be conceptualized as a more general social strategy used by autistic people aiming to improve their relationships with others., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Objectives: Motor planning is the cognitive process of planning necessary steps for achieving a purposeful movement and is specifically reflected through object manipulation. This study aimed to investigate whether fine motor skills, a surrogate of the motor planning ability of object manipulation, in early childhood are associated with later social skills, in a general-population birth cohort., Methods: A total of 913 children, participating in the Hamamatsu Birth Cohort for Mothers and Children, were enrolled. Social skills were measured using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-II, Socialization domain, at age 6 years. Fine motor skills were measured using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning at 14, 24, and 32 months. The associations between fine motor skills at ages 14, 24, and 32 months and social skills at age 6 years were tested separately through multivariable linear regression after adjusting for covariates, including gross motor and language skills at the contemporaneous age, autistic symptoms at age 6 years, and demographic factors., Results: Fine motor skills at 24 and 32 months were significantly associated with social skills at age 6 years (at 24 months: nonstandardized regression coefficient = 1.38 [95% CI, 0.50-2.26], p = 0.002; at 32 months: 1.47 [0.56-2.38], p = 0.001)., Conclusion: Fine motor skills in early childhood predicted social skills at age 6 years, indicating an association between the complex motor planning ability of object manipulation and later social skills. Children who demonstrate fine motor delay at as early an age as 2 years should be closely monitored by child professionals., Competing Interests: All phases of this study were supported by grants from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, & Technology in Japan (grant numbers 19H03582, 21KK0145, and 22H00492 to K. J. Tsuchiya, 20K07941 to T. Nishimura, 20K13928 to A. Okumura, 20K02628 to T. Harada, 21K17268 to M. S. Rahman, and 22K02405 to T. Iwabuchi) and AMED (grant number JP21gk0110039 to K. J. Tsuchiya). This study was conducted as part of the Collaborative Research Network for Asian Children with Developmental Disorders (“CRNACDD”), United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, & Technology in Japan had no role in the design and conduct of the study.  The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)