Little is known about the impact of aging with Autism Spectrum Disorder on theory of mind (ToM). While ToM difficulties appear to abate with age in older autistic populations, this has yet to be explored in the Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP). The current study examined ToM performance among younger (n = 49, aged 18–46) and older adults (n = 47, aged 60–91) who were classified as on the BAP (younger n = 18; older n = 21) or not (younger n = 31; older n = 26) using the BAP Questionnaire. ToM was assessed using the ecologically valid Strange Stories Film Task (SSFT) and the dynamic Happé–Frith Triangle Animations task (TA). A 2 × 2 analysis of variance examined the effects of autistic traits (BAP vs. non‐BAP) and age (young vs. old). For both SSFT and TA, results showed autistic trait main effects on task performance (non‐BAP > BAP). Age main effects were observed for some but not all metrics on TA (younger better than older), with no differences in SSFT. An interaction of autistic traits and age was observed in TA Intentionality, with younger non‐BAP and younger BAP performing similarly but older non‐BAP performing better than older BAP. Results show that younger and older adults with elevated autistic traits show poorer ToM performance. Despite ToM difficulties being common in later life in the general population, this effect was not observed when using a ToM task designed to reflect real‐world scenarios. However, results suggest that autistic traits and age could interact to increase risk for poor ToM performance in older adults who endorse elevated autistic traits. Autism Res 2020, 13: 751–762. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

中文翻译：

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具有较高自闭症特征的年轻人和老年人的心理表现理论。

关于自闭症谱系障碍的衰老对心理理论（ToM）的影响知之甚少。尽管年龄较大的自闭症患者的ToM困难程度随着年龄的增长而减轻，但尚未在广泛的自闭症表型（BAP）中进行探讨。本研究检查了被分类为BAP的年轻人（n = 49，年龄18-46岁）和老年人（n = 47，年龄60-91岁）中的ToM表现（年龄n = 18；年龄n = 21）或不（年轻n = 31；年龄n= 26）使用BAP问卷。使用生态学上有效的《奇异故事电影任务》（SSFT）和动态的《哈皮·弗里斯三角动画》任务（TA）对ToM进行了评估。2×2方差分析检查了自闭特征（BAP与非BAP）和年龄（年轻人与老年人）的影响。对于SSFT和TA，结果均显示自闭特征对任务绩效的主要影响（非BAP> BAP）。在某些而非全部TA指标上观察到了年龄主效应（年龄比年轻人更好），SSFT没有差异。在TA Intentionality中观察到自闭症特征和年龄之间的相互作用，年轻的非BAP和年轻的BAP表现相似，但年长的非BAP的表现优于年长的BAP。结果显示，患有自闭症特征的年轻人和老年人表现出较差的ToM性能。尽管ToM困难在以后的普通大众中很常见，但在使用旨在反映现实情况的ToM任务时却没有观察到这种效果。但是，结果表明，自闭症特征和年龄可能相互作用，从而增加了认可自闭症特征升高的老年人发生ToM不良表现的风险。Autism Res 2020，13：751–762。©2019国际自闭症研究会，Wiley Periodicals，Inc.