Our paper titled, Characterizing the Social Interaction Style of Autism in Young Adult Males with Fragile X Syndrome, was published in the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research. This paper featured contributions from our former PhD student Carly Moser who is now at Vanderbilt University completing her postdoctoral fellowship, and our former undergraduate researcher Alyssa Campanelli who is currently completing her medical school education here at USC.

Our study aimed to clarify the characterization of autism within fragile X syndrome (FXS), which is often challenging due to overlapping traits. We analyzed 41 young adult males with FXS and co-occurring autism and based on their predominant interaction style, classified them as active (initiating social approaches) or passive (lacking initiation to social approaches). We found an even split between these styles, highlighting the diversity of autism traits within young adult males with FXS. The active and passive groups did not differ in autism severity, anxiety, ADHD symptoms, cognitive, adaptive, or language abilities.

These findings are clinically important. Clinicians may infer things like someone’s level of intelligence or anxiety based on their social interaction style. For instance, clinicians may think individuals with FXS who are active are not socially anxious and make decisions based on that presumption, when our findings suggest that anxiety does not differ between active or passive young adult males. This study also contributes to our knowledge of how autism-related social interaction difficulties may manifest among young adult males with FXS.

To read the entire article, use this link!