Over the past decade, mental health awareness campaigns have expanded significantly across the Western world. These efforts, ranging from...

Autism has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent decades. Once thought of as a rare and narrowly defined childhood condition,...

In most cases, ASD is diagnosed between 15 and 30 months. Some children exhibit typical early development, only to lose acquired language and social skills between 15 and 30 months. These cases qualify as regressive autism. However, there are instances of late onset autism where individuals appear to develop typically until adolescence or even adulthood before displaying symptoms consistent with autism. In such cases, an identifiable neurological insult, such as, e.g, herpes

Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to attribute mental states—such as beliefs, intentions, and emotions—to oneself and others,...

Theory of Mind (ToM) has been applied not only to humans and animals but also to Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. The extent to wh

The theory of mind  (ToM) has been instrumental in shaping research in psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, providing a...

How Comparisons with Down Syndrome Have Changed Premack and Woodruff's seminal study in 1978 introduced the concept of theory of mind...

Art activities have shown to be highly beneficial for autistic individuals (Vrisaba et al. 2021) because art offers a unique medium...

Alexithymia is considered a “sub-clinical phenomenon” (Silani et al. 2008) and doesn’t identify a personality disorder  per se  but is a personality trait that is dimensional in nature (Taylor et al. 1991). Alexithymia is not a symptom of autism, but rather an independent construct that frequently co-occurs with autism. Although alexithymia has similar symptoms , it is distinct from autism – it is neither a necessary nor sufficient feature for an autism diagnosis, and there a

The connection between alexithymia and ASD was initially explored in the 1990s through clinical studies on individuals with eating disorders, specifically anorexia nervosa (AN).   The studies revealed the co-occurrence of eating disorders with deficiencies in social competence and identified some traits that were considered typical of ASD, [ 1 ]   such as empathy problems, as well as some features considered typical of alexithymia, such as difficulty verbalising emotions, ide

The Diagnostic Difficulties Chronic pain is quite common in autism , yet it is often unrecognised (and undiagnosed). The diagnosis of...

‘Autistic people don’t do metaphors’ Because of their literal interpretation, autistic children do experience difficulties in...

Hypersensitive Narcissism and Hypersensitivity in ASD

Overlaps, prevalence and comorbidity Overlapping symptoms It is now recognised that ASD and personality disorders (PDs) have a variety of...

Is there a hidden connection? Personality Disorders (PDs) and ASDs are distinct yet interconnected psychiatric disorders/ psychological...

Distinct features and diagnostic challenges of psychosis in autis m Although there is a considerable overlap in symptoms, it is important...

Distinguishing between hallucinations and “hallucinations” Hallucinations are said to be false perceptions that occur in the absence of...

There are other types of echolalia that are difficult to explain, for example, involuntary echolalia , when the person blurts out words...

If it’s not for communication, what’s the point? As I didn’t know much at the time, I made a mistake thinking that as soon as my son...

To speak (another language) or not to speak (with an autistic child)? Typically developing children in multilingual families tend to pick...