Abstract
Developing a positive view of the self is important for maintaining a good mental health, as feeling negative about the self increases the risk of developing internalizing symptoms such as feelings of depression and anxiety. Even though autistic individuals regularly struggle with these internalizing feelings, and both self-concept and internalizing feelings are known to develop during adolescence, there is a lack of studies investigating the development of positive self-concept and self-esteem in autistic adolescents. Here, we studied academic, physical, and prosocial self-concept as well as self-esteem in adolescent males with and without autism on both the behavioral and neural level. We additionally focused on similarities in one's own and peers' perspectives on the self, and we assessed a potential role of alexithymia (i.e. having trouble identifying and describing one's feelings) in developing a more negative view of the self. Results showed that there were no group differences in self-esteem, self-concept, or underlying neural activation. This shows that autistic adolescent males use the same neural processes when they evaluate their traits. However, regardless of clinical diagnosis, a higher number of autism traits was related to a less positive physical and prosocial self-concept, whereas more difficulty identifying one's feelings was related to lowered self-esteem and less activation in medial prefrontal cortex during self-evaluations. Therefore, in treatment of autistic adolescents with low self-esteem, it is important to take into account and possibly aim to improve alexithymic traits as well.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 2346-2361 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Autism : the international journal of research and practice |
Volume | 28 |
Issue number | 9 |
Early online date | 27 Feb 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Sept 2024 |
Funding
The authors thank the Dutch Autism Register (NAR) for their help in participant recruitment. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO-VICI 453-14-001 E.A.C.). The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO-VICI 453-14-001 E.A.C.).
Funders | Funder number |
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Dutch Autism Register | |
National Association of Realtors | |
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek | NWO-VICI 453-14-001 |