Background: Approximately 50,000 U.S. teens with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) become adults every year, however little is known regarding how age influences social cognition and if men and women with ASD are differentially impacted across the adult lifespan. Social cognition declines non-linearly with age in neurotypical (NT) adults. Moreover, sex differences have been observed on RME tasks in NT adults but not adults with ASD, although aging effects have been largely ignored.

Objective: This cross-sectional study examined the influence of age and sex on social cognition in adults with ASD compared to NT adults.

Methods: The Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) task was administered to evaluate the theory of mind abilities in 95 adults with ASD and 82 NT adults ages 18–71 years. The main effects of diagnosis, age, and sex, as well as two-way and three-way interaction were modeled using linear and quadratic aging terms in a multiple regression analysis.

Results: A main effect of diagnosis was observed, indicating poorer performance in adults with ASD relative to NT adults. Age and sex interactions were nonsignificant.

Discussion: We replicated previous findings of reduced theory of mind (ToM) abilities in adults with ASD, compared to NT adults. While interactions were nonsignificant, visual inspection of quadratic age curves indicated the possibility of unique ToM trajectories in men and women with and without ASD that should be investigated in larger longitudinal studies.

背景：每年约有50,000名患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的美国青少年成年，但是对于年龄如何影响社会认知以及患有ASD的男性和女性在成年人的寿命中受到的影响不同，人们所知甚少。在神经型（NT）成人中，社交认知随年龄呈非线性下降。此外，尽管衰老效应已被大大忽略，但在NT成人中，但在ASD成人中，在RME任务上却观察到了性别差异。

目的：这项横断面研究检查了年龄和性别对ASD成年人与NT成年人相比对社会认知的影响。

方法：进行了“阅读眼中的思想（RME）”任务，以评估95名ASD成年人和82位18-71岁的NT成年人的心理能力理论。在多元回归分析中，使用线性和二次老化项对诊断，年龄和性别以及双向和三向交互作用的主要影响进行建模。

结果：观察到诊断的主要作用，表明ASD成年人相对于NT成年人表现较差。年龄和性别之间的相互作用不显着。

讨论区：我们复制了以前的发现，与新成人相比，患有自闭症的成年人的心理理论（ToM）能力降低。虽然交互作用不显着，但对二次年龄曲线的目视检查表明，无论是否患有ASD的男性和女性，都有独特的ToM轨迹的可能性，应在较大的纵向研究中进行研究。